THE  LIBRARY 
OF  , 
THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


Cbe  §)totp  of  the  illations 


PARLIAMENTARY    ENGLAND 


p 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS 


4- 
5- 
(). 

7- 
S. 

9- 

10. 

II. 

12. 

'3- 
M. 

15- 


17. 
IS. 

I'). 
20. 


24. 


26. 

27 
2s, 
29 

3° 

31 


33 

34 

35 


Rome.     By  ARTHUR  GlLMAN,  M.A. 
Tne  Jews.     By  Prof.  J.  K.  HOSMER. 
Germany.       By    Rev.    S.    BARING- 

Gould,  M.A. 
Carthage.       By    Prof.     ALFRED     J 

CHURCH. 

Alexander's     Empire.        By     Prof. 

J.  P.  Mahaffy. 
The  Moors  in  Spain 

Lane-Poole. 


By  Stanley 
Bv  Prof.  George 


Prof.      ARMINIUS 

By  Arthur  Gil- 

the     Hon.     Emily 


Ancient  Egypt. 
Rawlinson. 
Hungary        By 

Vambery. 
The   Saracens. 

max.  M.A. 
Ireland.       By 

Lawless. 
Chaldea.  By  Zfnaide  A.  Ragozin. 
The  Goths.  By  Henry  Bradley. 
Assyria.  By  ZENAfDE  A.  K  >GOZIN. 
Turkey.  By  STANLEY  L«NK-POOLE. 
Holland.     By  Prof.  J.  E.  Thorold 

Rog  ERS. 
Mediaeval    France.      By    GUSTAVE 

Masson. 
Persia.     By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin. 
Phoenicia.  By  Prof.  G.  Rawlinson. 
Media.     By  ZenaIde  A.  Ragozin. 
The    Hansa   Towns.     By    Helen 

Zimmern. 
Early  Britain.      By   Prof.  ALFRED 

J.  Church. 
The  Barbary  Corsairs.    By  Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
Russia.     By  W.  R.  Moreill,  M.A. 
The  Jews  under  the  Romans.     By 

W,  D.  Morrison. 
Scotland.      By  John  Mackintosh, 

LL.D. 
Switzerland.      By  Mrs.  LlNA  Hug 

and  R.  Stead. 
Mexico.     Bv  Susan  Hale 
Portugal.   By  H.  Morse  .Stephens. 
The  Normans.      By  Sarah   Orme 

Jewett. 
The  Byzantine  Empire.     By  C.  \V. 

C.  O.MAV. 
Sicily  :      Phoenician,      Greek     and 
Roman.      By    the     Prof.     E.    A. 
Freeman. 
The  Tuscan  Republics.     By  Bella 

Duffy. 
Poland.     By  W.  R.  Morfill,  M.A. 
Parthia.     By  Prof.  George  Raw- 
linson. 
,  The  Australian  Commonwealth.   By 
Greville  Tregarthen. 


36. 
37. 

38. 

39- 

40. 

4>- 

42. 

43. 

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45- 
46. 

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5°- 


33- 

54- 
55" 

v>. 

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58. 
59- 

f)0. 
6l. 
62. 

63- 

64. 

65- 
66. 


Spain.     By  H.  E.  WATTS. 

Japan.     By  DAVID  Murray,  Ph.D. 

South  Africa.  By  George  M. 
Theal. 

Venice,     By  ALETHEA  WieL. 

The  Crusades.  By  T.  A.  Arch  11; 
and  C.  L.  KlNGSFORD. 

Vedic  India.     By  Z.  A.  Ragozin. 

The  West  Indies  and  the  Spanish 
Main.     By  James  Rodway. 

Bohem'ia.  By  C.  Edmund 
Maurice. 

The  Balkans.  By  W.  Miller, 
M.A. 

Canada.  By  Sir  J.  G.  Bourinot, 
LL.D. 

British  India.  By  R.  W.  FRAZER, 
LL.B. 

Modern  France.  By  Andre  Le 
Bon. 

The  Franks.  By  Lewis  Ser- 
geant. 

Austria.     By  Sidney  Whitman. 

Modern  England.  Before  the  Re- 
form Bill.  By  Justin  McCarthy. 

China.     By  Prof.  R.K.   Douglas. 

Modern  England.  From  the  Reform 
Bill  to  the  Present  Time.  By 
Justin  McCarthy. 

Modern  Spain,  Bv  Martin  A.  S. 
Humk 

Modern  Italy.     By  Pietro  ORSI. 

Norway.     By  H.  H.  BOYESEN. 

Wales.    Bv  O.  M.  Edwards. 

Mediaeval  Rome.  By  W.  Miller, 
M  A 

The  Papal  Monarchy.  By  William 
Barry,  D.D. 

Mediaeval  India  under  Mohamme- 
dan Rule.  By  Stanley  Lane- 
Poole. 

Buddhist  India.  By  Prof.  T.  W. 
Rhys-Davids. 

Parliamentary  England.  By  ED- 
WARD Jenks.  M.A. 

Mediaeval'  England.  By  Mary 
Bateson. 

The  Coming  of  Parliament.  By  L 
Cecil  Jane. 

The  Story  of  Greece.  From  the 
Earliest  Times  to  A.D.  14.  By 
E.  S.  Shuckburgh. 
The  Story  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
<B.C.  20  to  A.D.  476.)  By  H. 
Stuart  Jones. 
Denmark  and  Sweden,  with  Ice- 
land and  Finland.  By  Jon 
STEFANSSON,  Ph.D. 


London  :  T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace 


RIGHT    HON.   CHARLES  JAMES   FOX,   M.P.    ( 1 741)    iNortJ. 

From  a  hitherto  unpublished  portrait  by  Lady  Diana  Beauclerk,  reproduced 
by  kind  permission  of  Colonel  Lascelles. 


Parliamentary 


England 


THE   EVOLUTION   OF 
THE    CABINET    SYSTEM 


BY 

EDWARD   JENKS,   M.A. 

READER   IN    ENGLISH   LAW   IN    THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  OXFORD 


,      *    .     » 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD. 
LONDON:  i  ADELPHI  TERRACE 
NEW  YORK:    G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


•  •  •     •  ■ 


•    «      ••     I        <  *         «•», 


•  •    •  *   •       * 


•  •  *  •  •  •  • 


Copyright  by  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1903 
(For  Great  Britain) 

Copyright  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1903 
(For  the  United  States  of  America) 


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PREFACE 


A  BOOK  of  this  size,  which  is  to  deal  with  a 
century  and  a  half  of  modern  history,  can  only 
succeed  by  limiting  its  treatment  to  a  single  side 
of  the  national  life.  The  author  has,  accordingly, 
chosen  for  his  subject  the  evolution  of-  that  curious 
form  of  government  which  is  known  as  the  Cabinet 
System,  the  appearance  and  development  of  which 
u     synchronise  almost   exactly  with    the    period    under 

y    consideration.     Whatever  be  the  merits  and  defects 

z 

r 


of  that  system,  and  whatever  its  future  fate,  it  must 
always  remain  a  subject  of  deep  interest  to  students 
of  history,  and  especially  to  students  of  English 
history.  For  it  has  had  an  immense  influence  on 
the  politics  of  the  world  ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  products  of  the  English  mind.  The 
author  employs  the  word  "  English  "  advisedly  ;  for 
it  is  noteworthy  that  neither  in  Scotland  nor  in 
Ireland,  before  the  Unions,  is  there  any  trace  of  the 
Cabinet  System,  and,  though  it  has  been  freely 
adopted  by  the  self-governing  colonies,  there  are 
many  who  doubt  whether  it  is  essentially  suited  to 


323140 


X  PREFACE 

the  circumstances    either  of  colonial  or  of  imperial 
politics. 

The  author,  though  he  cannot  pretend  to  an 
exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  vast  mass  of  material 
available  for  the  period,  has  made  use  of  the 
standard  sources,  a  few  of  which  are,  for  the  benefit 
of  students,  enumerated  in  the  Appendix.  Among 
recently  published  authorities  are  especially  to  be 
noticed  Sir  William  Anson's  edition  of  the  Grafton 
Papers,  and  Mr.  Graham  Wallas's  admirable  mono- 
graph on  Francis  Place,  who  was  the  soul  of  the 
democratic  movement  of  the  early  nineteenth  century. 

The  author's  thanks  are  especially  due  also  to  Mr. 
C.  Grant  Robertson,  Fellow  of  All  Souls'  College, 
Oxford,  who  has  been  good  enough  to  read  the  proof 
sheets,  and  to  Mrs.  Norman  Moor,  for  her  kindness 
in  preparing  the  Index. 

Oxford, 

June,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


i. 

PAGE 

The  Politics  of  the  Restoration   .         .         .       1-30 

Policy  of  Cromwell-'— Convention  Parliament — Rural  Govern- 
ment— Municipal  Government — Methods  of  Clarendon — 
(  'rown  Revenues — Crown  expenditure — The  Court  party — ■ 
The  Privy  Council — The  Cabal. 


II. 

The  Glorious  Revolution        ....     31-58 

Regency  scheme — Mary  of  Orange — Assembly  of  peers — 
Second  Convention  Parliament — The  two  resolutions — The 
Free  Conference — Regency  scheme  fails  —  Constitutional 
reforms — Revolution  policy — A  limited  monarchy. 

III. 

The  Last  of  the  Old  Order  ....     59-91 

France  and  Ireland — Choice  of  ministers- — Leniency  of 
William — Turbulence  of  officials—  Power  of  the  Commons — 
The  resort  to  corruption — Campaign  in  Ireland— Govern- 
ment expenditure — Criminal  prosecutions — Parties  in  Council 
— Return  of  Sunderland — Attitude  of  William. 


Nil  CONTENTS 

IV. 

PAGB 

Signs  of  Change 92-119 

Essentials  of  the  Cabinet  System — The  King's  supremacy — 
Government  of  Anne — France  and  Scotland — The  Scottish 
Parliament — Occasional  Conformity  Bill— Disputed  elections 
— The  Aylesbury  case — Divisions  in  the  Ministry — Hano- 
verian succession — Basis  of  the  Cabinet  System — An  un- 
conscious development. 


The  System  of  Waepole  ....  120-1  xx 


- 


Character  of  Walpole — Union  with  Scotland — Terms  of  the 
Union — Victories  of  Marlborough — Trial  of  Sacheverel — - 
Industry  and  commerce — The  Septennial  Act — Convocation 
suspended— National  Debt — South  Sea  Bubble — Walpole's 
ascendency  at  Court — I  lis  financial  measures — His  ascen- 
dency in  Parliament— A  disciplinarian — Importance  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 


VI. 

The  System  on  its  Trial        ....  154-177 

Colonial  enterprise — Incipient  reform — Commons  and  Cabinet 
— Admission  of  Pitt  to  office — Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle — 
The  need  of  reform — Rise  of  the  British  Umpire — The  new 
factor  in  politics. 


VII. 

A  Patriot  King       ......   178-210- 

Education  of  the  King — Blackstone's  Commentaries — Weak- 
ness of  the  Cabinet  System — -The  Bute  Ministry — Perse- 
cution of  Whigs — Prosecution  of  Wilkes — The  Grenville 
Ministry— Colonial  trade  —  British  commercial  jealousy — 
Grenville's  Acts — Fall  of  Grenville. 


CONTEXTS  XI 11 

VIII. 

PAGE 

The  King's  Friends 211-243 

Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act — Pitt  in  office — His  retirement — 
The  Wilkes  libels— Triumph  of  Wilkes— Policy  of  North- 
America  and  the  tea  duty — American  independence — Per- 
sonal government— Publicity  of  debates — English  Law  in 
Canada — Justice  in   England. 


IX. 
Revival  of  the  Cabinet  System     .         .         .  244-282 

Attitude  of  Rockingham — Repression  in  Ireland — Loyalty  of 
Irish  Catholics — Catholic  relief — Measures  of  reform — Peace 
negotiations — Coalition  of  Fox  and  North — A  weak  Cabinet 
—Indian  legislation — East  Indian  Company  remodelled— 
Warren  Hastings — Fox's  India  Bill — Intervention  of  the 
King— Pitt's  administration  —  Defeat  of  the  Opposition — 
Triumph  of  Pitt — Influence  of  popular  approval. 


X. 
Pitt 2S3-323 

Pitt's  India  Act — Impeachment  of  Hastings — Financial  re- 
form—The "  Sinking  Fund"— Hostile  tariffs— The  Regency 
question — Ireland  and  the  French  Revolution — Irish  Catho- 
lics enfranchised — War  with  France — The  Emancipation 
Bill — Irish  disaffection— Rebellion  in  Ireland — Union  with 
Ireland — The  Peace  of  Amiens — Government  of  Canada — - 
Conservatism  of  Pitt. 

XL 
Reaction  and  Reform 324-378 

Foreign  and  domestic  affairs — The  industrial  world — Popular 
discontent — Death  of  George  III. — The  working-class  move- 
ment— Condition    of    Ireland — O'Connell's    campaign — Re- 


XIV  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ligious  toleration  —  Parliamentary  reform  —  The  borough 
system — Anomalies  of  the  Franchise — The  Reform  Bill- 
Bill  rejected  by  the  Lords — Reformers  at  work — Passing  of 
the  Bill. 

XH. 
History  and  Criticism 379-426 

Distrust  of  absolute  monarchy — Official  responsibility — The 
new  tendency — Whig  organisation — The  Great  Whig  Party — 
The  power  of  the  House  of  Commons — The  policy  of  bribery 
— The  Tory  Party — Evolution  of  the  Cabinet  System — 
Politics  in  solution — The  English  attitude  in  politics — The 
Royal  Prerogative — Popularity  of  the  Crown — Virtue  of  the 
Cabinet  System  —  Power  of  the  Cabinet  —  The  House  of 
Lords — The  spirit  of  leniency — Men  and  measures — Minis- 
terial types — Flexibility  of  the  System — Political  organi- 
sations— Government  by  persuasion — The  Cabinet  and  the 
country. 

Leading  Dates    in    the  History  of  the  Cahinet 

System 427 

List  of  Selected  Authorities  for  the  Period   .  430 
Index ...  433 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


RIGHT      HON.       CHARLES      JAMES       FOX,       M.P.      (l749~ 

1806)         .  .  .  Frontispiece 

From  a   hitherto  unpublished  Portrait  by  Lady  Diana  Beauclerk. 
Reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  Colonel  Lascelles. 


PAGE 


EDWARD    HYDE,    EARL    OF    CLARENDON    (1608-1674)       .  J 

From  an  engraving  after  Sir  Peter  l.ely  {Lodge's  Portraits,  Harding 
and  Leppard,  1835.) 

ANTHONY   ASHLEY   COOPER,    FIRST    EARL    OF    SHAFTES- 
BURY   (1621-1683)  23 

From  a  painting  by  John  Greenhill,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

SIR    WILLIAM    TEMPLE    (1628-1699)         .  .       2"} 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

JUDGE   JEFFREYS    (1648-1689).  29 

From  a   painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  h'ueller,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

ARCHBISHOP   SANCROFT    (1616-1693)  •       35 

From  a  painting  by  Lnlterel.  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

THOMAS    HOBBES    (OF    MALMESBURY)    (1588-1679)  .       39 

From  a  painting  by  J.  M.  Wright,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


xv 


xvi  LIST   OF  ILLUSTfiATIOXS 

PAGE 

JOHN    LOCKE    (1632-1704)  .  .  .  .       41 

From  an  engraving  after  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller.    (Lodges  Portraits.) 

WILLIAM    III.    (1650-1702)  .  .  .  -63 

From  a  painting  by  7au  Wyi  k,  in  the  yalional  Portrait  Gallery. 

THE   GREAT    DUKE   OF    MARLBOROUGH    (1650-1722)        .       7 1 
From  a  painting  by  Closterman,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

CHARLES    MONTAGU    (HALIFAX)    ( 1661-1 7 15)      .  .       85 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

LORD    SOMERS    (1651-1716)  .  .  .89 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

LAURENCE    HYDE,    EARL    OF    ROCHESTER    (164I-I7I  i)  .       99 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,   in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

ROBERT  HARLEY,  EARL  OF  OXFORD  (1661-1724)     .  TI3 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait 

Gallery. 

SIR    ROBERT    WALPOLE    ( 1 676- 1 745)        .  .  .121 

From  <i  painting  by  ;?.  B.  Van  Loo,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

HENRY    ST.    JOHN    (bOLINGBROKE)    (1678-1751)  .    133 

Fiom  an  engraving  aftei  Sit  Godfrey  Kneller.    (Lodge's  Portraits.) 

WILLIAM    PULTENEY    (BATH)    (1682-1764)  .  .    159 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  the  National  Portrait 

Gallery. 

STATUE      OF      LORD      CHATHAM      (1708-1778)       IN       ST. 

STEPHEN'S    HALL,    WESTMINSTER     .  .  167 

By  1>   Macdowell,  R.A. 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  XV11 

PAGE 
EARL    TEMPLE    (17H-1779)         ....    169 
From  an  old  print. 

THOMAS,    DUKE    OF    NEWCASTLE    (1715-1768)    .  .    1 73 

From  mi  engraving  niter  William  Hoare.    {Lodge's  Portraits.) 

THE    EARL    OF    BUTE    (1713-1792)  .  .  .    185 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

EDMUND    BURKE    (1729-1797)  .  .  •    I9I 

Front  an  engraving  after  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

GEORGE    GRENVILLE    (1712-1770)  .  .  .    193 

From  an  engraving  after  Ridley.     (Vernor  &  Hood's  edition  0/  the 
"Letters  0/ Junius,"  1805.) 

JOHN    WILKES    (1727-1797)         .  •  •  .195 

Portrait  by  Hogarth. 

CHIEF    JUSTICE    PRATT    (CAMDEN)    (1713-1794)  .    I99 

From  an  engraving  after  Hopmood.    ("  Letters  of  Junius.") 

LORD    ROCKINGHAM    (173O-1782)  .  .  .    213 

From  an  engraving  after  B.  Wilson. 

statue  of   lord    mansfield    (1705-1793),   in    st. 

Stephen's   hall,  Westminster  .  .  .221 

By  E.  H.  Bailey,  R.A. 

FREDERICK,    LORD    NORTH    (l733-l792)  •  •    227 

From  an  engraving  alter  Nathaniel  Dance.    (Lodge's  Portraits.) 

BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN    (1707-1790)  .  .  •    231 

From  an  engraving  after  Duplessis. 

LORD    SHELBURNE    (1737-1805)  .  .  •    247 

From  u  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 


XVlll  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

DEAN    SWIFT    (1667-1745)  ....    251 

Engraved  hv  Vanliaecken,  front  .1  drawing  by  Markham,  after  Bindon. 

WILLIAM    PITT    (1759    1806)        ....    285 

From  a  painting  by  John  Hopptier,  R.A.,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

RIGHT    HON.    HENRY    GRATTAN    (1746-1820)       .  .    3OI 

From  an  engraving  by  Godby  after  Pope. 

LORD   CASTLEREAGH    (1769-1822)  .  .  .    313 

Front  a  painting  by  Sir  Thos.  Lawrence,  in  the  National  Portrait 

Gallciy. 

SIR    FRANCIS    BURDETT    (1770-1844)       .  .  .    32 1 

From  a  painting  by  Slice,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

THOMAS    PAINE    (1737-1S09)      ....    327 

From   a   portrait  by  Jarvis,   in   the  possession  of  Monetae  Daniel 
Conway. 

THOMAS,    LORD    ERSKINE    (1750-1823).  .  329 

From  a  painting  by  Sir   William  Ross,   in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

RIGHT    HON.    GEORGE   CANNING    (1770-1827)     .  -337 

Bust  by  Chantrey,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

JOSEPH    HUME    (i  777-1855)        •  •    339 

From  a  painting  by  J.  W.  Walton,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

DANIEL   O'CONNELL,    M.P.    (1775-1847)  .  .    345 

Front  a  painting  by  Mnlrcnin,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

LORD    ELDON    (1751-1838)  ....    349 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Thos.  Lawrence,  PR. A.,  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery. 

RIGHT     HON.     SIR     ROBERT    PEEL,     BART.     (1788-1850)    353 
from  a  painting  by  Linncll,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  XIX 

PAGE 

LORD    BROUGHAM    (1779-186S)  .  .  .    355 

From  a  painting   by  James  Lonsdale,   in  the  National    Portrait 
Gallery. 

LORD   JOHN    RUSSELL    (1792-1878)  .  .  .    359 

From  a  fainting  by  Sir  Francis  Grant,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

THE    GREAT    DUKE    OF    WELLINGTON    (1769-1852)  .    365 

From  the  bust  by  7.  Francis,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 

CHARLES,    EARL    GREY    (1764-1845)        .  .  .    369 

From  a  fainting  by  Sir  Tlws.  Lawrence,  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

WILLIAM    WILBERFORCE,    M.P.    (1759-1833)         .  .   377 

From  a  painting  by  'J.  Rising. 


PARLIAMENTARY    ENGLAND 


THE   POLITICS   OF   THE    RESTORATION 

It  is  the  business  of  this  book  to  explain  how 
that  system  of  government  which  came  into  force 
in  England  with  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II.  in 
1660  was  changed,  in  the  course  of  one  hundred  and 
seventy  years,  into  the  system  which  was  in  force  at 
the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill,  and  which,  with 
some  modifications,  is  in  force  at  the  present  day. 
In  the  first  place,  therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  explain 
how  England  was  governed  in  the  years  which  fol- 
lowed the  return  of  the  Stuarts. 

The  system  of  the  Restoration  represents,  of 
course,  the  reaction  after  the  Great  Civil  War.  That 
war  had  been  fought  by  people  who  were  very  much 
in  earnest.  The  two  irreconcilable  ideals,  loyalty 
to  a  person  and  loyalty  to  a  faith,  had  clashed  in 
the  shock  of  battle  ;  and  victory  had  been  given  to 
the  higher  creed.     Slowly,  but  surely,  the  conduct  of 

2  1 


2  THE   POLITICS   OF    THE   RESTORATION 

affairs  had   passed  into  the  hands   of  the   stern  en- 
thusiasts  who  cared   much   for   principles   and   little 
for    men  ;    whose    watchwords    were    Righteousness 
and    Duty.     Of   that  little  band,  Cromwell  was  the 
champion    and    spokesman  ;    and     therefore    he    was 
carried  into  power.     But  his  followers  dealt  faithfully 
with  him  ;  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  reminding  the 
Lord    Protector,  that  he  held  his   office,  not   by  any 
personal    claim,    but    as    the    exponent    of    certain 
principles.     Furthermore,    they    significantly    hinted, 
that    any    trifling    with    carnal    weakness    would    be 
followed  by  instant  deposition.     Cromwell,  strong  as 
he  was,  realised  this  perfectly  well. 

Such  a  government    could   continue  only  on  one 
condition— that  it  should  succeed  in  converting  the 
nation  to  its  own   exalted    temper.     This    condition 
the  government  of  the  Commonwealth  entirely  failed 
to  perform.      In  spite  of  his  superb  ability,  perhaps 
by  reason   of  it.  Cromwell   remained   the  representa- 
tive   of  a    hopeless    minority,    of  an    aristocracy  of 
vififour  and  enthusiasm;  he  never  caught  the  imagina- 
tion   of   the  common   man.      For  every  one  of   his 
subjects  who  heard  with   a  glow  of  patriotism  of  the 
great  exploits  of  English  soldiers  in  Europe  and  the 
Southern  Seas,  or  watched  with   pride  the  sailing  of 
the  Protector's  fleet,  there  were  a  thousand  who  hated 
him    for    his    avowed    contempt    of    what    he   called 
superstitions,    but    which    they     reverenced    as    the 
traditions  of  their  childhood,  for  the  taxation   which 
his  splendid   army  entailed,  for  the  perfection  of  his 
police    system,    nay,    for    the    very    efficiency  of  his 
administration.      This    last    cause    may    seem     far- 


POLICY    OF  CROMWELL  3 

fetched  ;  but  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand.  In 
almost  every  system  of  government,  there  are  some 
rules  which  are  above  the  level  of  average  practice. 
For  example,  in  almost  every  municipal  borough  at 
the  present  day,  there  is  a  rule  against  driving  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  road,  and  another  against 
leaving  horses  unattended  in  the  streets.  Occasion- 
ally these  rules  are  enforced  ;  but,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  in  spite  of  the  obvious  dangers  which  follow 
from  neglect  of  them,  they  are  not  obeyed.  Any 
official  who  attempted  to  apply  them  systematically 
and  completely  would  be  driven  from  office  by  a 
storm  of  popular  disapproval.  In  Cromwell's  day 
they  would  have  been  rigidly  enforced,  to  the  intense 
disgust  of  the  average  man,  who  hates  rules  which 
interfere  with  his  easy-going  ways.  Every  fresh 
accession  of  knowledge  which  historical  research 
reveals  goes  to  show  that  the  Cromwellian  system 
was  thoroughly  efficient,  and  thoroughly  unpopular. 
It  was,  in  fact,  only  maintained  at  all  by  the 
personal  genius  of  Cromwell,  who  administered  an 
impossible  policy  in  the  least  impossible  form. 
When  he  died,  the  strained  bow  flew  back.  Cowed 
by  its  recent  experiences,  the  nation  hesitated,  for 
some  fifteen  months,  to  show  its  real  mind.  During- 
this  interval,  the  merest  shadow  dance  of  hollow 
spectres  filled  the  stage  at  Westminster.  But  at  last 
there  came  a  man  who  laid  his  finger  on  the  national 
pulse,  and  found  it  beating  with  hope  of  a  return  to 
the  good  old  times,  the  old  social  and  political  order 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  when 
each    man    knew   his   place  and  kept   it,  and    when 


4  THE   POLITICS    OF   THE   RESTORA  Tit  W 

neighbours  could  meet  together  without  quarrelling 
about  the  condition  of  things  in  high  quarters. 
Most  of  the  old  grievances  were  forgotten — the 
exactions  of  Charles'  revenue  officers,  the  tyranny  of 
the  bishops'  courts,  the  pressing  of  men  for  hopeless 
wars,  the  billetting  of  soldiers,  and  the  like.  The  past 
was  invested  with  a  golden  halo,  which  hid  all  these 
things  from  sight.  The  leading  courtiers  looked,  no 
doubt,  for  place  and  power.  The  clergy  hoped  to 
return  to  their  parsonages  and  their  stalls.  The 
royalist  lawyers  who  had  compromised  with  the 
enemy  by  confining  themselves  to  chamber  practice, 
and  by  instructing  their  clerks  to  write  "Oliver"  with 
a  little  "  o,"  *  saw  before  them  visions  of  great  law- 
suits, and  noble  opportunities  of  forensic  eloquence. 
All  these,  no  doubt,  had  urgent  reasons  for  desiring  a 
Restoration.  But  these  reasons  had  existed  any  time 
for  ten  years  without  bringing  back  the  King.  The 
real  power  behind  Monk  and  the  Convention  Parlia- 
ment of  1660,  was  the  passionate  desire  of  the 
nation  to  return  to  the  good  old  times. 

Charles  and  his  friends  must  have  known  some- 
thing of  all  this.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Charles,  like 
his  father  before  him,  was  a  representative  man. 
The  father  represented  the  spirit  which  produced 
the  Civil  War — the  deep  religious  enthusiasm,  the 
determined,  if  mistaken,  ideal  of  loyalty,  the  strong 
militant  ardour  which  will  fight  a  hopeless  struggle 
rather    than   give   way.     The   son    represented    the 

1  The  story  is  told  of  Sir  Geoffrey  Palmer,  who  made  a  great  name 
as  ;i  conveyancer  during  the  Commonwealth,  and  who  became  the 
first  Attorney-General  of  the  Restoration. 


CONVENTION  PARLIAMENT  5 

spirit  which  the  Civil  War  had  produced — the 
disbelief  in  ideals,  the  acceptance  of  material 
comfort  as  the  one  thing  really  certain,  the  unscrupu- 
lous abandonment  of  principles  in  the  face  of  temp- 
tation. And  so  Charles  II.  and  his  people  were,  in 
1660,  really  suited  to  one  another. 

But  it  took  some  time  to  discover  this  truth.  The 
King,  most  of  whose  life  had  been  spent  abroad, 
knew  little  of  the  people  ;  the  people  knew  little  of 
the  King.  The  real  secret  of  Charles'  security  lay 
in  the  double  fact,  that  the  nation  was  prepared  to 
submit  to  almost  anything  rather  than  re-kindle 
the  flame  of  civil  war,  while  the  King  was  prepared 
to  yield  almost  anything  rather  than,  as  he  himself 
expressed  it,  set  "out  on  his  travels  again.  But  until 
this  bond  of  security  became  apparent,  the  returned 
exiles  seemed  determined  to  profit  by  the  stern 
experience  of  the  war. 

The  statesman  who  most  completely  expressed 
this  cautious  policy  was  the  Earl  of  Clarendon. 
His  view  of  the  situation  was,  emphatically,  that  of 
a  lawyer.  Every  exercise  of  political  authority  since 
the  late  King  left  London  in  January,  1642,  he 
regarded  as  a  mere  nullity.  Even  where  it  was 
manifestly  impossible  to  ignore  the  deeds  of  the 
Commonwealth,  as,  for  example,  in  the  abolition  of 
feudal  tenures,  he  demanded  that  the  change  should 
be  sanctioned  afresh  by  Act  of  Parliament.  Nay,  he 
even  required  that  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention 
Parliament  itself,  that  very  Parliament  which  had 
recalled  the  King,  should  be  confirmed  by  its  suc- 
cessor,   because    the    Convention     Parliament      had 


G  THE   POLITICS   OF   THE   kESTORATION 

assembled  without  the  royal  summons.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  professed  to  regard  the  earlier  Acts  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  which  had  received  the  royal  assent, 
as  legally  binding,  though  they  had  manifestly  been 
forced  upon  the  Crown  in  a  time  of  revolution. 
Thus,  he  took  pains  to  require  the  formal  repeal  of 
the  Act  which  had  prohibited  the  bishops  sitting  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  famous  Triennial  Act 
of  1641. 

By  this  cautious  policy,  the  Restoration  govern- 
ment at  first  dissociated  itself  from  the  extremists  on 
both  sides.  It  made  no  attempt  to  go  behind  the 
Parliamentary  triumphs  of  the  reforming  party,  such 
as  the  Petition  of  Right  and  the  abolition  of  the 
Star  Chamber  ;  and  so  it  gave  no  encouragement  to 
the  high  prerogative  school  of  Strafford  and  Laud. 
But,  after  a  little  hesitation,  it  definitely  abandoned 
the  hopes  of  religious  toleration  held  out  by  the 
Declaration  of  Breda,  and,  instead  of  providing  a 
liberty  for  tender  consciences,  it  strengthened  the 
Elizabethan  policy  of  Uniformity.  It  procured  from 
the  royalist  Parliament  of  1661  an  Act  which 
excluded  all  Nonconformists  from  municipal  office,  a 
second  Act  which  forbade  them  to  hold  meetings  for 
purposes  of  worship,  and  a  third  which  prohibited 
their  ministers  acting  as  schoolmasters,  or  even 
residing  within  five  miles  of  a  corporate  town.  The 
more  extreme  pretensions  of  the  old  Parliamentarian 
party,  to  control  the  choice  of  the  King's  ministers 
and  to  criticise  the  administration  of  public  affairs, 
it  studiously  ignored  ;  and  it  was  not  happy  until 
the   famous  army  of  the  Commonwealth,  which  was 


EDWARD    HYDE,    KARL   OF   CLARENDON    (1608-1674). 

From  an  engraving  after  Sir  Piter  Lely. 


3  THE   POLITICS   OF    THE   RESTORATION 

justly    regarded,  despite  its   correct  behaviour,   as  a 
formidable  relic  of  Puritanism,  was  disbanded. 

And  so,  to  all  appearance,  the  ancient  life  of 
England  resumed  its  quiet  course.  In  the  country, 
the  Puritan  Justices  were  replaced  by  Cavaliers,  and 
the  Crown  took  care  to  prick  as  sheriffs  only  such 
men  as  were  known  to  be  thoroughly  loyal  to  it.  In 
the  hands  of  Sheriff  and  Justices  lay  practically  the 
whole  of  the  rural  government,  except  when  the 
judges  from  Westminster  came  round  on  circuit. 
The  sheriff  and  his  officers  tracked  out  persons 
accused  of  crime,  apprehended  them,  and  brought 
them  before  the  Justices,  who,  if  the  offence  charged 
was  serious,  committed  them  to  prison,  or  let  them 
out  on  bail,  to  await  their  trial  before  the  judges 
of  assize ;  if  it  was  less  weighty,  disposed  finally 
of  the  case  in  Quarter  Sessions.  The  Sheriff  also 
executed  all  the  orders  of  the  higher  courts,  hanged 
the  criminal  condemned  to  death,  sold  the  goods  of 
the  debtor  who  would  not  or  could  not  pay,  and  put 
the  victorious  litigant  into  peaceful  possession  of  the 
disputed  estate.  The  Sheriff  also  presided  in  the 
Small  Debts  Court  of  the  shire,  and,  more  important 
still,  at  the  election  of  members  of  Parliament  for  the 
county.  Even  the  return  of  borough  members  passed 
through  his  hands  ;  and  it  was  this  electoral  function 
which  made  the  character  of  the  sheriffs  a  matter  of 
such  vital  interest  to  the  Crown.  For,  though,  in 
theory,  the  Sheriff  was  a  mere  ministerial  official,  yet, 
in  fact,  he  had  no  small  influence  in  election  results. 
As  a  revenue  official,  also,  the  Sheriff  still  accounted 
for  the   "ferm"  or  dues  of  the  shire,  the  profits  of 


RURAL    COVERS  All- XT  O, 

wardships  and  escheats,  treasure  trove,  fines  for  venial 
offences,  and  other  casual  items  ;  though  the  rapidly 
growing  army  of  Exchequer  officials  threatened  to 
render  his  financial   duties  unimportant. 

In  the  hands  of  the  Justices  of  the  Peace  lay  a 
vast  miscellaneous  authority,  which  tended  to  in- 
crease with  every  fresh  development  of  national 
policy.  From  the  beginning  of  their  existence  in 
the  early  fourteenth  century,  they  had  been  specially 
charged  with  the  preservation  of  the  peace,  and  the 
punishment  of  petty  assaults.  At  the  break  up  of 
the  medieval  system  of  serfdom,  which  followed  on 
the  plague  of  the  late  fourteenth  century,  the 
regulation  of  the  ever-increasing  class  of  day 
labourers,  rural  and  urban,  was  placed  in  their  hands. 
It  was  they  who  enforced  the  stern  rules  against 
vagabondage  laid  down  by  the  early  Tudor  statutes, 
and  the  apprenticeship  policy  of  Elizabeth.  The 
Age  of  Elizabeth  had  also  handed  over  to  them  the 
control  of  that  vast  system  of  poor  relief,  which  was 
summed  up  by  the  great  statute  of  1601.  In  each 
parish  the  poor  law  funds  were  levied  and  adminis- 
tered by  the  overseers,  but  the  appointment  of  the 
overseers  and  the  enforcement  of  their  duties  were 
in  the  hands  of  the  Justices  of  the  Peace.  Such 
scanty  elements  of  a  sanitary  law  as  the  country 
enjoyed  were  likewise  enforced,  if  at  all,  by  the 
Justices.1     The  Reformation,   which  had   brought  in 

1  The  student  who  reads  the  contemporary  histories  of  this  period  will 
notice  frequent  references  to  "  Commissioners  of  Sewers."  But  these 
officials  were  concerned  only  with  the  drainage  of  land  for  agricultural 
purposes. 


10  Till-    POLITICS   OF   THE    RESTORATION 

its  train  a  whole  elaborate  scheme  of  statutes,  aimed 
at  securing  outward  conformity  to  the  rites  of  the 
Established  Church,  had  left  the  enforcement  of 
its  policy,  at  any  rate  since  the  abolition  of  the 
Court  of  High  Commission,  mainly  to  the  Justices  of 
the  Peace  ;  and  the  Restoration  statutes,  while  giving 
back  to  the  ecclesiastical  courts  much  of  the  jurisdic- 
tion which  had  been  taken  away  from  them  by  the 
Long  Parliament,  wisely  refrained  from  entrusting  to 
the  clergy  the  carrying  out  of  the  penal  laws  against 
Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  Nonconformists. 
Finally,  although  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  royalist 
Parliament  of  1661  was,  to  declare  that  the  supreme 
command  of  all  the  armed  forces  of  the  country  was 
vested  in  the  Crown,  the  same  body  expressly 
committed  the  control  and  management  of  the 
local  militia  to  the  Lieutenants  of  the  counties  and 
their  deputies,  who  were,  in  fact,  the  most  important  • 
men  amongst  the  Justices  of  the  Peace. 

In  the  corporate  towns,  which  had  been  the  strong- 
holds of  the  Puritan  cause,  at  any  rate  in  the  later 
stages  of  the  war,  the  King's  advisers  had  a  more 
difficult  game  to  play.  Although,  here  too,  the 
Justices  of  the  Peace  exercised  considerable  authority,1 
and  it  was  easy  to  ensure  that  they  should  be  well 
affected  to  the  Government,  there  existed,  alongside 
of  these,  important  bodies  of  elected  officials  such  as 
mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  councillors,  who,  by 

1  There  appears  to  be  sonic  little  doubt  whether  the  borough 
("ustices  were  not,  in  some  cases,  elected  by  the  inhabitants.  But 
it  is  very  significant  that  the  Corporation  Act  oi"  l66l  takes  no 
precautions  against  them. 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT  II 

their  power  to  make  by-laws,  their  control  of  the 
town  funds,  and  their  influence  in  parliamentary 
elections,  were  capable  of  proving  dangerous  op- 
ponents of  the  Court.  Stringent  measures  were 
accordingly  taken  to  ensure  the  exclusion  of  un- 
desirable men  from  such  posts.  Not  only  were  all 
holders  of  office  compelled  to  take  the  oaths  of 
supremacy  and  allegiance ;  they  were  further  obliged, 
upon  pain  of  exclusion  from  their  places,  to  swear 
that  they  regarded  all  resistance  to  the  Crown,  under 
whatever  circumstances,  as  unlawful,  and  to  declare 
that  they  held  the  famous  Covenant  to  be  of  no 
binding  force.  But  this  was  not  all.  By  an  almost 
unprecedented  surrender  of  the  rights  of  the  subject, 
the  Corporation  Act  of  1661  authorised  the  King 
to  create  a  Commission  of  Visitors,  who  should  have 
power,  for  nearly  two  years,  to  remove,  at  their  un- 
controlled discretion,  all  municipal  officers,  (whether 
they  were  willing  to  take  the  oaths  or  not,)  whose 
continuance  in  office  they  deemed  to  be  inexpedient 
for  the  public  safety,  and  to  replace  them  by  any 
others  who  had  been  previously  ejected.  The 
royalist  writers  are,  for  the  most  part,  discreetly 
silent  about  the  use  which  was  made  of  this  extra- 
ordinary power  ;  but,  as  the  Corporation  Act  goes  on 
to  exclude  from  all  future  holding  of  office  every 
person  who  fails  to  take  the  sacrament  according  to 
the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England,  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  the  Commission  was  aimed  at  the  total 
exclusion  of  dissenters  from  municipal  office.  When 
we  consider  further  the  character  of  the  Conventicle 
Acts   of   1664   and    1670,    which    prohibited,   under 


12  THE  POLITICS   OF  THE   RESTORATION 

severe  penalties,  all  assemblies  for  religious  worship 
otherwise  than  in  the  churches  of  the  Establishment, 
and  which,  though  general  in  their  operation,  must 
have  been  most  severely  felt  in  the  great  centres  of 
population,  and,  finally,  the  Five  Mile  Act  of 
1665,  which  prohibited  all  Nonconformist  ministers 
coming  within  five  miles  of  a  Corporate  town  until 
they  had  taken  the  oath  of  non-resistance,  it  will  be 
easy  to  realise,  that  if  the  government  of  the  Restora- 
tion did  not  succeed  in  tuning  the  Corporations  as 
effectually  as  Elizabeth  had  succeeded  in  tuning  the 
pulpits,  it  was  not  for  lack  of  strenuous  endeavour. 

If  we  turn  from  the  local  authorities  to  the  central 
government  in  London,  we  shall  recognise  the  same 
policy  of  adhesion  to  the  letter  of  the  law,  combined 
with  a  determination  to  keep  the  control  of  affairs  in 
the  hands  of  the  "  well-affected."  His  enemies  said 
that  Clarendon  was  no  lawyer  ;  and  it  may  well  be 
that  his  knowledge  of  the  details  of  ordinary  legal 
practice  was  limited.  But  he  had  an  essentially  legal 
mind  ;  and  his  long  study  of  the  sham  business  of  an 
exiled  Court  had  brought  him  to  regard  forms  as  of 
the  utmost  importance.  Now,  in  form,  the  English 
Constitution,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  was  a 
monarchy,  in  which,  no  doubt,  the  action  of  the  King 
was  expressly  limited  by  certain  solemn  enactments, 
but  in  which  every  exercise  of  State  authority  was 
effected  in  the  name  of  the  King,  and  in  which  every 
other  organ  of  the  central  authority — Parliament, 
Privy  Council,  Admiralty  Board,  Treasury,  Chancer}-, 
even  the  Law  Courts— was  a  mere  satellite  of  the 
Crown,  brought  into  existence  to  act  as  its  humble 


METHODS   OF  CLARENDON  I  3 

adviser  and  helper,  not  as  a  rival,  or  even  as  a  critic 
of  the  Crown's  authority.  It  is  greatly  to  Clarendon's 
honour,  that  he  made  a  practical  exception  to  this 
rule  in  the  case  of  the  Law  Courts.  The  subser- 
vience of  the  judges  in  the  early  days  of  the  struggle 
between  Crown  and  Parliament,  seems  to  have  been 
condemned  by  all  moderate  men  ;  and  the  growing 
practice  of  appointing  the  judges  for  life,  instead  of 
merely  at  the  pleasure  of  the  King,  was  doing  much 
to  strengthen  the  wholesale  feeling  of  judicial  in- 
dependence. Unhappily,  the  practice  was  not  made 
compulsory  until  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  Settlement 
in  1 700,  an  omission  to  which  may  be  attributed 
many  of  the  evils  of  the  later  days  of  the  Stuart  rule. 
But  still,  both  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Restora- 
tion governments  seem  to  have  been  sincerely 
anxious  to  raise  the  dignity  of  the  judicial  bench  ; 
and,  in  the  many  changes  which  took  place  between 
1640  and  1660,  there  seems  to  have  been  little  breach 
of  continuity  in  the  roll  of  the  judges. 

In  all  other  respects,  however,  there  was  a  complete 
break  between  the  policy  of  the  Restoration  and  the 
policy  of  the  Long  Parliament.  The  Reformers  of 
1640  had  desired  to  establish  a  Commonwealth  in 
which  all  questions  of  first  importance  should  be 
decided  by  votes  of  the  elected  House,  and  all 
details  of  administration  supervised  by  a  Council  of 
State  which  should  be,  in  effect,  a  Committee  of  that 
House.  Moreover,  Parliament  was  to  retain  in  its  own 
hands  the  appointment  of  public  officials.  This  was 
actually  the  system  in  force  from  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  until  the  day  on  which  Cromwell's  dragoons 


14  THE   POLITICS   OF   THE    RESTORATION 

turned  the  last  remnant  of  the  Long  Parliament  out 
of  doors.  There  had  been  a  faint  attempt  to  revive 
it  on  the  death  of  Cromwell.  But  Clarendon  would 
have  none  of  it.  He  might  have  pointed  out,  with 
great  force,  that  the  system  had  not  been  able  to 
maintain  itself  even  during  the  absence  of  a  Kine. 
He  preferred  to  say,  that  the  system  was  clearly 
illegal,  and  that,  by  the  evidence  of  countless 
documents  and  forms  of  speech,  Parliament  was 
merely  the  advisory  Council  of  the  monarch  in 
matters  of  legislation  and  taxation.  It  was  true, 
that,  by  the  same  law  to  which  Clarendon  appealed, 
any  attempt  by  the  Crown  to  legislate  or  to  tax 
without  the  consent  of  Parliament  was  condemned. 
But  if  the  King  did  not  desire  to  legislate  or  to 
impose  taxes,  he  might  comply  with  all  the  require- 
ments of  the  law  by  merely  calling  Parliament 
together  for  a  brief  session  once  every  three  years.1 
Had  the  force  of  circumstances  permitted,  there  is 
little  doubt  that  Clarendon  would  have  advised  the 
King  to  keep  as  near  this  minimum  as  possible.  In 
Parliament  as  an'  organ  of  good  government,  he  had 
no  belief  whatsoever,  even  though  the  severe  measures 
taken  with  the  borough  constituencies,  and  the 
exaction  of  the  Oath  of  Supremacy  from  newly 
elected  members,  rendered  it  difficult  for  Catholics 
or  Nonconformists  to  gain  admission. 

There    was,    however,    one    important    fact,    which 
rendered  Clarendon's  views  on  the  relations  of  Crown 

1  The  Statute  <<(  1664,  which  repealed  the  Triennial  Act  of  tin- 
Long  Parliament,  still  expressly  forbade  the  intermission  of  Parliament 
for  longer  than  this  period. 


CROWN  REVENUES  I  5 

and  Parliament  practically  untenable.  This  fact  was, 
that  the  Civil  War  had  destroyed  the  last  shred  of  the 
financial  independence  of  the  Crown.  With  the  steady 
fall  in  the  value  of  money,  and  the  steady  growth  of 
the  expense  of  government,  the  Crown  had  come 
more  and  more  to  depend  upon  Parliament  for  the 
means  of  existence.  A  grant  of  taxation,  at  one 
time  looked  upon  as  an  exceptional  measure,  giving 
ground  for  a  strong  suspicion  that  the  monarch  had 
been  wantonly  extravagant,  gradually  became  a 
normal  feature  of  every  session  of  Parliament.  The 
last  desperate  struggle  of  Charles  I.  to  reign  indepen- 
dently of  Parliament  had  broken  down  before  the 
sheer  necessity  of  filling  the  royal  coffers.  The  taxa- 
tion of  Cromwell  had  been  thorough  and  regular  ;  and 
Charles  II.  was  not  likely  to  be  more  frugal  than 
Cromwell.  Finally,  the  feudal  revenues,1  once  the 
main  stay  of  the  independent  income  of  the  Crown, 
had  been  swept  away  by  the  Commonwealth  govern- 
ment; and  the  Cavalier  Parliament  of  the  Restoration, 
much  as  it  hated  the  Puritans  and  their  ways,  had  not 
the  slightest  hesitation  in  affirming  a  measure  which 
relieved  the  landowners  from  a  chief  part  of  their 
liabilities  to  the  State.  It  is  true  that  a  liberal  com- 
pensation had  been  granted  to  the  Crown  in  the  shape 
of  an  hereditary  excise  upon  beer,  wines,  and  spirits  ; 

1  These  were  a  numerous  list  of  casual  items  due  to  the  Crown  as 
supreme  landowner  in  the  kingdom,  from  all  persons  whose  estates  had 
originally  been  granted  to  them  by  the  Crown,  on  condition  of  military 
service.  They  included  such  vexatious  items  as  the  right  to  the  ward- 
ship of  infant  heirs,  the  values  of  heiresses'  marriages,  the  privilege  of 
seizing  provisions  and  carts  for  the  royal  household,  and  the  like. 


1 6  THE   POLITICS   OF   THE   RESTORATION 

and  that,  in  pursuance  of  ancient  precedent,  the 
Customs  Revenue  had  been  settled  on  the  King  for 
life.  But,  in  this  latter  gift,  the  Commons  inserted  a 
significant  warning  that  no  extension  of  the  list  of 
dutiable  articles  (technically  known  as  the  "  Book  of 
Rates"),  much  less  any  increase  in  the  rates  of  duty, 
could  be  looked  for  except  from  the  favour  of  the 
Lower  House.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  before  the 
end  of  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  Charles  was  obliged 
to  come  to  Parliament,  hat  in  hand,  on  more  than  one 
occasion. 

It  was  the  fond  belief  of  Clarendon,  that  this  state 
of  things  would  only  be  temporary.  Once  let  the 
enormous  expense  of  disbanding  the  Commonwealth 
army  be  discharged,  the  accumulated  debts  of  exile 
paid,  the  pardonable  extravagances  of  new  possession 
overcome,  then  surely  the  natural  increase  of  trade 
under  a  lawful  monarch  would  manifest  itself  in  the 
increase  of  Customs  and  Excise,  and  all  would  be  well. 
But  the  happy  day  never  came.  As  the  Court  began  to 
realise  the  temper  of  the  nation,  the  outward  decency 
of  the  early  years  faded  before  the  growing  spirit  of 
reckless  extravagance  and  immorality.  In  the  ex- 
pressive language  of  the  time,  "  the  pudding  began  to 
creep,  and  all  must  needs  have  a  share."  Money  voted 
for  public  purposes  was  squandered  by  the  King  on 
mistresses  and  courtiers.  The  pension  list  grew  at  an 
appalling  rate.  Jobbery  and  robbery  filled  the  public 
offices,  and  emptied  the  public  coffers.  The  claims  of 
the  Crown  were  neglected,  except  where  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  receipts  went  into  private  pockets. 
The   claims  against  the  Crown  were  either  ignored 


CROWN   EXPENDITURE  \J 

altogether,  or  satisfied  two  or  three  times  over.  The 
more  impudent  the  demand,  the  more  likely  to  meet 
with  success.  To  the  extravagances  of  peace  was 
added  the  cost  of  war.  Clarendon  himself  reckoned, 
that  the  expense  of  the  fleet  had  multiplied  itself 
tenfold  since  the  accession  of  the  King's  father.  And 
yet  the  seamen  were  always  clamouring  for  their  wages. 
And  so  it  was  necessary,  not  to  extinguish  Parlia- 
ment, but  to  conciliate  it.  And  at  this  point  the 
legality  of  the  Chancellor  gave  way.  In  strict  law, 
he  ought  to  have  appeared  as  the  King's  representa- 
tive before  the  Houses,  and,  in  a  formal  speech,  have 
named  the  sum  which  his  Majesty  desired  of  his 
faithful  people.  Neither  Clarendon,  nor  Southampton 
(the  Treasurer),  nor  Ashley  (the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer),  was  a  member  of  the  Commons  ;  and 
it  was  grossly  unconstitutional  of  them,  as  matters 
then  stood,  to  attempt  to  influence  the  debates  of  that 
House.  But  the  risks  of  the  old  method  were  too 
great.  It  would  not  do  to  incur  a  refusal.  It  was 
nscessary  that  Ministers  should  be  kept  in  touch 
with  the  changing  temper  of  the  Commons,  should  be 
able  to  give  assurances  and  promises  on  behalf  of  the 
Crown,  and  should  bring  to  bear  upon  members  all 
the  Court  influence  which  in  that  day  meant  so 
much.  In  other  words,  the  House  had  v  to  be 
"  managed " ;  and  the  Chancellor,  dignified  as  he 
was,  did  not  disdain  entirely  the  arts  of  management. 
But  he  was  not  an  adept  in  the  business.  His  practice 
was  to  summon  a  few  of  the  "  well-affected  "  members 
to  meet  himself  and  the  Treasurer  at  fairly  frequent 
intervals  during  the  session,  and  to  read  them  homilies 

3 


1 8  THE   POL/ TICS    OF   THE   RESTORATION 

on  the  behaviour  of  the  House.  The  members  thus 
favoured,  for  the  most  part  respectable  Cavalier 
squires,  did  their  best  to  follow  the  Chancellor's 
lead,  but  without  much  success.  They  were  not 
supple  enough  ;  they  found  a  new  and  frivolous 
element  in  the  House,  an  element  which  professed 
unbounded  loyalty  to  the  King,  but  which  desired  to 
see  its  loyalty  openly  recognised. 

The  opportunity  thus  afforded  was  seized  by  a  new 
type  of  politician,  or,  rather,  by  a  new  development  of 
political  ambition.  The  professed  courtier,  who,  in 
former  reigns,  would  have  shrunk  from  contact  with 
anything  so  vulgar  as  the  business  of  the  Commons, 
now  found  his  element  in  studying  it.  He  realised  very 
well,  that  the  King,  with  his  cynical  selfishness,  would 
welcome  help  from  whatever  quarter  it  came,  and 
would  reward  it  in  strict  proportion  to  its  usefulness. 
The  help  which  Charles  needed  could  generally  be 
expressed  in  one  word — money.  For  money  he  was 
willing  to  sink  his  honour,  his  dignity,  his  royal 
position  ;  and  he  was  prodigal  in  his  favours  if  he 
had  money  in  prospect.  What  was  needed  was  a 
link  between  the  Court  and  the  House  of  Commons, 
but  a  link  which  should  not  be  too  conspicuous.  It 
was  exactly  the  post  for  an  adventurer.  Men  like 
Bennet  and  Will.  Coventry  first  made  themselves 
acceptable  in  small  offices  to  the  King,  then  procured 
seats  in  the  Commons  by  royal  influence,  then  set 
themselves  steadily  to  work  to  make  a  Court  party  in 
the  House.  I  f  a  member  showed  signs  of  aptitude,  he 
was  assiduously  cultivated  by  these  new  missionaries, 
taken  to  kiss  the  King's  hand,  his  head  turned    by 


THE   COURT  PARTY  \g 

gracious  words  from  royal  lips  and  gracious  glances 
from  semi-royal  eyes.  He  heard  himself  extolled  as 
a  man  of  the  most  prodigious  parts,  though  in  all 
probability  his  former  friends  had  been  stupid  enough 
to  treat  him  as  an  ordinary  person.  Visions  of  stars 
and  titles  floated  before  his  eves.  He  regarded  his 
new  friends  as  better  guides  to  the  royal  wishes  than 
the  ostensible  Ministers,  who  merely  communicated 
their  orders  at  second  hand,  and  who  never  brought 
him  within  the  sacred  circle  of  royalty. 

A  moment's  thought  will  show  the  strength  of  the 
position  held  by  men  like  Kennet  and  Coventrv. 
They  alone  knew  the  minds  of  both  parties  to  the 
bargain.  A  few  gracious  and  vague  words  from  the 
monarch,  a  few  profound  reverences  from  his  sup- 
porters in  the  House — these  were  the  only  points  of 
direct  contact  between  the  bargainers.  The  real 
business  was  settled  by  discussions  in  the  King's 
closet,  and  by  whisperings  in  the  lobbies  of  the 
House.  But  on  these  occasions  the  parties  were 
not  face  to  face.  Everything  depended  on  the 
reports  of  the  intermediaries.  What  was  to  prevent 
Coventry  from  glossing  the  words  of  the  King  to 
the  members,  or  exaggerating  the  promises  of  the 
members  to  the  King  ?  It  was  of  the  very  nature 
of  the  transaction  that  misunderstandings  could  not 
be  explained.  The  parties  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
connecting  link.  And  so  it  came  about  that  the 
Commons  often  voted,  not  what  the  King  really 
wished,  still  less  what  his  ostensible  Ministers  wished, 
but  what  the  Court  party  had  been  given  to  under- 
stand  that  the   King  wished.      In  other  words,  the 


20  THE   POLITICS   OF    THE   RESTORATION 

King  and  the  Commons  were  puppets  in  the  hands 
of  unscrupulous  intriguers. 

But,  of  course,  the  conquest  of  the  Commons,  and 
even  of  the  King,  did  not  mean  the  acquisition  of 
supreme  power.  So  long  as  the  great  offices  of  State 
were  held  by  men  like  Clarendon,  Southampton, 
Ormond,  or  even  like  Monk,  the  power  of  the  new 
intriguers  was  comparatively  small.  The  forms  of 
the  constitution  allotted  the  business  of  State  among 
these  great  officials  ;  and  it  had  been  judicially 
decided,  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  that  even 
the  personal  act  of  the  Crown  was  invalid  unless  it 
was  expressed  by  the  proper  official  in  the  proper  way. 
A  royal  grant  of  an  office  or  pension  was  worthless 
unless  it  was  duly  authenticated  by  the  Great  Seal, 
the  custody  of  which  was  the  special  privilege  of  the 
Chancellor.  A  royal  order  for  payment  of  a  sum  of 
money  was  invalid  unless  it  was  supported  by  the 
warrant  of  the  Treasurer.  Charles's  courtiers  talked 
loudly  of  the  indignity  suffered  by  a  monarch  whose 
personal  will  was  thus  thwarted  ;  and  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  even  Clarendon  or  Southampton 
would  actually  have  refused  to  issue  the  necessary 
forms  on  the  personal  command  of  the  King.  But 
the}'  could,  and  did,  refuse  to  issue  them  on  the 
application  of  courtiers,  even  though  that  application 
were  supported  by  the  royal  handwriting.  And 
Charles,  at  any  rate  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign, 
had  some  faint  sense  of  shame,  which  prevented  him 
overruling  the  firm  and  (it  may  be)  somewhat  prolix 
remonstrances  of  his  faithful  Ministers,  when  he  knew 
himself  to  be  entirely  in  the  wrong. 


THE   PRIVY  COUNCIL  21 

But  there  was  a  weak  spot  in  Clarendon's  armour  ; 
and  his  rivals  were  not  slow  to  detect  it.  Although 
the  Ministers  were  the  servants  of  the  Crown,  and 
were  entitled,  as  such,  to  individual  access  to  and 
to  orders  from  the  Crown,  they  could,  by  unques- 
tioned law,  be  summoned  by  the  Crown  to  take 
part  in  a  general  discussion  in  the  Privy  Council. 
Clarendon  himself  had  recognised  the  necessity  for 
a  continuance,  and  even  for  a  revival,  of  this  ancient 
institution,  if  only  as  a  counterpoise  to  unworthy 
favourites  whom  the  Crown,  from  personal  predilection, 
might  invest  with  some  of  the  great  offices  of  State. 
He  had  even,  with  some  reluctance,  consented  to  the 
formation  of  a  secret  committee  of  the  Council,  for  the 
discussion  of  matters  of  the  weightiest  importance, 
such  as  could  not  be  entrusted  to  the  entire  body. 
But  he  had  not  foreseen  that  this  secret  committee 
might  be  used  as  a  lever  to  induce  the  King  to 
overrule  the  views  of  his  Ministers ;  and  he  was 
beyond  measure  disgusted  when  the  King  proceeded 
to  admit  the  new  political  intriguers,  not  merely  to 
membership  of  the  Council,  but  to  membership  of  the 
secret  committee.  Yet  it  was  impossible  to  deny  the 
constitutional  right  of  the  King  to  summon  any  of  his 
subjects  to  the  Privy  Council  ;  and  even  Clarendon 
himself  would  have  admitted  the  importance  of  keep- 
ing the  House  of  Commons  in  harmony  with  the 
Executive  Government.  The  mischief  of  the  arrange- 
ment lay  in  the  possibilities  of  abuse  which  it  opened 
up ;  and  especially  in  the  fact  that  it  was  really 
introduced  by  unscrupulous  intriguers  for  their  own 
selfish  ends.    One  of  the  first  results  of  its  introduction 


22  THE   POLITICS   OF    THE    RESTORATION 

was,  to  enable  Sir  George  Downing  to  procure  the 
insertion  in  a  Bill  of  Supply  of  the  famous  clause 
appropriating  the  sums  voted  by  the  Commons  to 
specific  purposes — a  step  which  at  once  threatened  a 
national  bankruptcy,  because  it  repudiated  the  claims 
of  the  bankers  who  had  advanced  money  on  the  faith 
of  the  incoming  revenue.  Clarendon  himself  has  left 
a  vivid,  almost  a  pathetic  picture  of  the  meeting  at 
which  the  step  was  forced  upon  a  bedridden  Chan- 
cellor and  a  gouty  Treasurer  by  the  glib  arguments 
of  the  courtiers  ;  and  the  scene  is  really  vital,  for  it 
marks  the  triumph  of  the  new  order  over  the  old. 
Moreover,  unworthy  as  were  the  motives  of  the 
propounders,  the  scheme  was,  in  truth,  the  precursor 
of  two  fundamental  institutions  of  English  politics — 
the  financial  control  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
the  existence  of  a  National  Bank'. 

The  crisis  came  in  the  year  1667,  when,  on  the 
death  of  Southampton,  the  King,  against  the 
strenuous  remonstrances  of  Clarendon,  refused  to 
appoint  a  new  Lord  Treasurer,  and  put  the  Treasury 
into  Commission  in  the  hands  of  Clifford,  Coventry, 
Ashley,  and  Duncombe.  The  first  three  were  Parlia- 
mentary intriguers  of  the  new  type,  the  last  a  respec- 
table country  squire  w  Ik  >,  as  a  tool  of  Coventry,  lent  an 
appearance  of  respectability  to  the  Treasury  Board, 
without  offering  any  serious  check  to  the  policy  of 
the  other  members.  This  momentous  step  was 
followed,  after  a  few  months,  by  the  impeachment 
and  fall  of  Clarendon  himself,  sacrificed  to  the  out- 
burst of  indignation  aroused  by  the  attempt  of  De 
Ruyter    on     London.     «It    seems    strange     that    so 


Photo  hy]  [Walker   &  Ccckerell. 

ANTHONY    ASHLEY    COOPER,     FIRST     EARL    OF     SHAFTESBURY    (1621-1683) 
Portrait  by  John  Grcenlull,  111  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


24  THE   POLITICS   OF    THE   RESTORATION 

shrewd  a  man  as  Charles  should  not  have  seen 
that,  in  dismissing  Clarendon  and  admitting  the 
Cabal  to  office,  he  was  really  losing  a  servant  and 
gaining  a  master.  Perhaps  he  did  see  it,  and  did 
not  care,  believing  that  he  would  always  be  able 
to  secure  good  terms  for  himself  from  the  new  rulers 
of  the  State.  For,  however  divided  amongst  them- 
selves, however  innocent  of  principle,  the  new 
Ministers  resembled  a  modern  Cabinet  in  this 
important  fact — that  they  hoped  to  govern  England 
according  to  their  own  views,  and  not  according  to 
the  views  of  the  King.  The  initiative  in  policy  was 
passing  from  the  Crown  to  the  Ministry.  Clarendon 
was  almost  the  last  of  the  medieval  type  of  Minister, 
who  set  devotion  to  the  Crown  as  the  first  political 
duty.  There  was  a  brief  revival  of  this  older  type 
with  Danby,  and  a  more  successful,  though  still 
more  belated  attempt,  with  North.  But  the  political 
gamblers  of  1667,  the  Cliffords,  the  Aldingtons,  the 
Buckinghams,  the  Coventrys,  the  Ashleys,  were  really 
the  pioneers  of  a  new  system,  the  development  of 
which  was  to  be  the  task  of  English  statesmanship 
for  the  next  two  hundred  years.  Their  achievement 
is  only  one  of  many  examples  which  seem  to  prove, 
that  there  is  no  necessary  connection  between  morals 
and  politics. 

It  is  not,  however,  superfluous  to  point  out, 
although  it  has  been  done  before,  that  the  Cabal 
Ministry  of  1667,  while  it  must  undoubtedly  be 
reckoned  as  a  distinct  advance  towards  the  modern 
system,  was  yet  very  different  from  the  Cabinet  of 
the  nineteenth  century.     Its  meetings  were,  indeed, 


THE    CABAL  ~$ 

secret  ;  it  had  no  formal  place  in  the  Constitution  ; 
and  it  was  supposed  to  be  busily  engaged  in  wire- 
pulling. The  name  of  Cabal  was  probably  given  to 
it  for  the  first  of  these  qualities,  from  the  Italian 
word  Cabala  (secret  society),  which  had  been 
naturalised  in  England  for  nearly  a  century.  The 
word  "Cabinet,"  in  an  almost  equivalent  sense,  was 
nearly  as  old.  The  accident  that  the  initials  of  the 
chief  members  of  the  Ministry  of  1667  happened  to 
spell  the  former  word,  no  doubt  helped  the  title  to 
stick,  and  rendered  the  word  itself  unpopular  after 
the  fall  of  the  Ministry. 

But  the  Cabal  differed  from  a  modern  Cabinet  in 
owning  no  allegiance  to  the  majority  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  in  having  no  common  policy,  and, 
above  all,  in  having  no  recognised  head.  It  is  not 
a  little  curious  that  Clarendon  had,  according  to  his 
own  account,  ostentatiously  refused  the  suggestion, 
made  a  year  or  two  after  the  Restoration, 
that  he  should  assume  the  title  of  First  Minister, 
after  the  model  of  the  French  system,  then  very 
much  in  favour  with  Charles  and  his  personal 
friends.  And  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  shade  of 
Mazarin  afterwards  took  an  ample  revenge  for  the 
indignity,  by  fastening  the  French  word  "Premier" 
upon  the  English  chief  Minister. 

Never,  in  fact,  was  there  a  wilder  medley  of  incon- 
sistent measures  than  the  doings  of  the  Cabal.  A 
definite  Protestant  policy  was  expressed  in  the  Triple 
Alliance  of  1668,  and  in  the  Bill  to  comprehend 
Nonconformists  in  the  Church.  But  a  revival  of 
the  Conventicle  Act  in    1670  showed  the  power  of 


26  THE   POLITICS   OF   THE   RESTORATION 

the  High  Anglicans,  only  to  be  followed  by  the 
Treaty  of  Dover  and  the  public  toleration  and 
protection  of  Catholics  by  the  King  and  his  brother. 
The  climax  was  reached  in  1676,  when  the  Duke  of 
York  made  a  formal  profession  of  Catholicism.  But 
this  last  step,  although  it  produced  a  reaction  which 
led  to  the  passing  of  the  Test  Act  in  1673,  and  the 
fall  of  the  Cabal  in  the  same  year,  did  not,  as  it 
would  have  done  a  century  later,  find  an  organised 
Opposition  ready  to  take  office.  On  the  contrary,  it 
seemed  to  destroy  the  new  system  at  a  blow,  and  to 
enable  the  Crown  to  revert  to  the  older  state  of  things, 
by  the  appointment  of  Danby  as  Lord  Treasurer. 

The  check  was,  however,  only  temporal-)'.  The 
first  passionate  outburst  of  loyalty  to  the  Crown 
provoked  by  the  Restoration  had  grown  somewhat 
cold  under  the  shadow  of  the  corruption  and 
debauchery  which  followed  the  fall  of  Clarendon. 
In  the  storm  of  indignation  aroused  by  the  inge- 
niously exploited  Popish  Plot,  the  personal  popularity 
of  Charles  fell  to  its  lowest  ebb.  The  Parliament  of 
1679  outspokenly  condemned  the  action  of  the  Court, 
and  carried  through  their  impeachment  of  Danby  in 
the  teeth  of  the  royal  pardon.  The  whole  country 
was  profoundly  stirred  by  the  controversy  over  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  by  which  it  was  proposed  to  exclude 
the  Duke  of  York  from  the  succession  on  the  ground 
of  his  religion.  Once  more  Parliament  was  divided 
into  sharply  hostile  parties  ;  the  supporters  of  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  or  "  Petitioners,"  maintaining  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  alter,  for  weighty  reasons, 
the  succession   to  the  throne,  the  opponents  of  the 


Photo  by] 


[Walker  &  Cockerell. 
SIR   WILLIAM   TEMPLE    (1628-I699). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


28  THE   POLITICS   OF   THE   RESTORATION 

measure,  the  "  Abhorrers,"  stoutly  asserting  the 
indefeasible  character  of  hereditary  right.  In  this 
division  reappears  the  old  cleavage  of  the  Civil  War, 
with  this  important  difference — that  both  parties  alike 
accept  the  main  outlines  of  the  existing  order,  and 
disagree  only  about  details.  Like  their  predecessors, 
the  Cavaliers,  the  "  Abhorrers "  professed  special 
loyalty  to  the  King,  and  thus  anticipated  the  attitude 
of  the  Tories,  their  successors.  Like  their  predeces- 
sors, the  Puritans,  the  "  Petitioners "  thought  more 
of  principles  than  of  men  ;  but,  unlike  them,  they 
were  not  prepared  to  abolish  existing  institutions. 
Thus  they  foreshadowed  their  Whig  successors,  who 
were  loyal  to  the  Crown,  though  claiming  for  Parlia- 
ment the  right  to  choose  its  wearer. 

As  the  line  of  cleavage  became  clearer,  a  new  band 
of  politicians,  worthy  of  the  name  of  statesmen, 
grew  up  in  the  place  of  the  intriguers  who  had 
caused  the  fall  of  Clarendon.  The  private  life  of 
Rochester  was,  no  doubt,  scandalous  ;  but  in  public 
life  he  was  not  without  principle.  Sunderland  was, 
no  doubt,  unscrupulous  ;  but  he  was  not  a  mere 
political  pirate.  Temple,  Essex,  Halifax,  and 
Somers  were  men  of  real  political  worth,  to  whose 
hands  the  ship  of  State  might  safely  be  entrusted. 
Temple's  scheme  of  1679,  to  place  all  executive 
authority  in  the  hands  of  a  Council  of  Thirty, 
unworkable  as  this  scheme  was,  points  definitely 
to  the  consummation  desired  by  the  first  political 
thinkers  of  the  day.  It  had  become  clear  that 
supreme  power  could  be  entrusted,  neither  to  a 
monarch   who   might    be    an    unprincipled    man   of 


Photo  by]  tWalker'&  Cocktrell. 

JUDGE   JEFFREYS    (1648-1689). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


30  THE   POLITICS,    OF   THE   RESTORATION 

pleasure,  nor  to  a  factious  House  of  Commons,  nor 
to  an  irresponsible  Junto  of  political  gamblers. 
The  problem  was,  to  find  some  scheme  which 
should  combine  the  advantages  of  all  these  alterna- 
tives, while  avoiding  their  defects.  Temple's  plan 
was  obviously  imperfect,  for  his  Council  had  neither 
the  unity  of  a  single  mind,  nor  the  cohesion  of  a 
Junto,  nor  the  stability  of  a  representative  Chamber. 
For  long  years  the  nation  was  to  wander  in  the 
desert  of  experiment.  But  some  of  the  clearer 
eyes  began  to  discern  the   Promised  Land. 

The  eight  years  which  elapsed  between  the 
publication  of  Temple's  scheme  and  the  landing  of 
William  of  Orange  were  fruitful  in  political  teaching. 
The  monarchy  of  the  Stuarts  was  rapidly  hastening 
to  its  doom,  and  revealing  to  an  incredulous  nation 
,the  possibilities  of  evil  which  lay  within  the  power 
of  a  jure  divino  King.  The  shameful  sale  of  the 
country  to  France,  the  tampering  with  the  judicial 
bench,  the  persecution  of  the  municipal  corporations, 
the  vindictive  murders  of  Russell  and  Sidney,  the 
open  defiance  of  the  Test  Act,  the  attack  on  the 
Universities,  the  collection  of  armed  troops  to  over- 
awe London,  the  proceedings  against  the  Seven 
Bishops,  at  last  roused  the  patience  of  a  nation 
only  too  reluctant  to  risk  a  revival  of  civil  war. 
The  invitation  to  William  of  Orange  was  signed  by 
representatives  of  all  political  parties.  James  found 
himself  without  a  friend  in  England.  It  was  not, 
in  fact,  until  the  Revolution  had  been  achieved,  that 
its  authors  began  to  consider  what  they  should  do 
with  it. 


II 

THE   GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

And  yet,  in  a  sense,  it  is  profoundly  true,  that  the 
final  flight  of  James  from  Rochester  was  not  in  itself 
a  Revolution,  but  merely  the  herald  of  a  Revolution. 
Just  as  the  real  difficulties  of  the  Puritans  had  begun 
with  the  capture  and  execution  of  James's  father,  so 
the  real  difficulties  of  the  statesmen  of  1688  be^an 
with  the  flight  of  James.  That  event  had  decided 
nothing,  except  that  James  himself  could  no  longer 
occupy  the  throne. 

Even  this  last  fact  was,  for  a  time,  disputed.  So 
strong  was  the  mistaken  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the 
person  of  the  King,  so  deep  the  dread  of  a  revival  of 
the  horrors  of  civil  war,  that  a  small  but  influential 
body  of  men,  under  the  leadership  of  Sherlock,  the 
Master  of  the  Temple,  urged  the  recall  of  James. 
But  even  Sherlock  did  not  venture  to  propose  that 
the  fugitive  should  be  recalled  without  conditions. 
He  had  himself  bravely  resisted  the  Order  in 
Council  which  bade  the  clergy  read  the  Declaration 
of  Indulgence  from  their  pulpits  ;  and  he  was  firm 

31 


32  THE    GLORIOUS    RF.V0LUT10X 

in  his  attachment  to  Protestantism.  Though  the 
party  which  he  represented  seems  to  have  ^been 
rather  wary  of  defining  its  conditions,  we  gather  that 
at  least  it  proposed  to  bind  the  King  not  to  exercise 
his  claim  to  dispense  with  the  operation  of  statutes, 
nor  to  attempt  to  force  Catholicism  on  an  unwilling 
nation.  Macaulay  has  pointed  out,  with  great  force, 
the  inconsistency  of  Sherlock's  position.  He  repre- 
sented those  who  had,  until  the  last  few  months, 
urged  that  under  no  circumstances  was  resistance  to 
the  monarch  lawful.  Yet  here  he  was  proposing  to 
resist  until  the  monarch  should  give  way  on  certain 
important  points  on  which  he  (the  King)  conscien- 
tiously believed  himself  to  be  right.  But,  in  truth, 
a  weightier  bar  than  the  doubtful  argument  of 
consistency  lay  across  Sherlock's  path.  How  could 
his  followers  be  sure  that  James  would  respect  his 
most  solemn  oaths?  His  moral  pedigree  was 
terribly  against  him.  Could  men  forget  how  his 
grandfather  had  thrown  over  his  own  subjects  and 
his  allies  in  the  face  of  his  pledged  word  ;  how  his 
father  had  played  fast  and  loose  with  those  who  had  • 
honestly  striven  to  come  to  terms  with  him — nay, 
even  with  his  own  loyal  and  devoted  followers;  how 
his  brother  had  taken  money  to  can')'  on  a  war  in 
alliance  with  the  Dutch  against  France,  and  had  then 
accepted  money  from  France  to  desert  the  cause  of 
the  Dutch  ?  No  doubt  the  courtly  clerics  and  nobles 
who  acted  with  Sherlock  were  prepared  to  urge  that 
Kings  were  not  bound  by  all  the  rules  of  morality 
by  which  ordinary  men  are  judged.  But  very  few 
Englishmen,  even  in  [688,  were  prepared  to  submit 


REGENCY  SCI  IF  M/-'  33 

to  a  monarch  who  declined  to  be  bound  by  the  most 
solemn  public  promises  in  matters  between  himself 
and  his  subjects.  Moreover,  James  had  none  of  the 
personal  attractions  which  were  too  often  allowed  to 
weigh  against  the  bad  faith  of  his  predecessors, 
none  of  the  homely  good-nature  of  his  grandfather, 
none  of  the  dignity  of  his  father,  none  of  the  easy 
tolerance  of  his  brother.  He  was  morose,  bigoted, 
cruel.  Though  he  had  at  one  time  acquired  a 
reputation  for  personal  bravery,  recent  events  had 
thrown  grave  doubts  upon  the  justice  of  that  claim. 
Finally,  it  was  more  than  questionable  whether  he 
himself  would  have  been  willing  to  make  even  the 
least  of  the  promises  which  his  warmest  advocates 
proposed  to  ask  of  him.  At  the  critical  moment, 
indeed,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Privy  Council,  which 
would  have  been  arrogant  from  a  victorious  ruler 
who  held  his  subjects  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  but 
which,  coming  from  a  fugitive,  was  simply  a  new 
testimony  to  his  utter  incapacity  to  grasp  the 
situation. 

A  second  proposal,  far  more  specious,  because  far 
less  open  to  obvious  objection,  and  far  more  in 
accordance  with  the  general  character  of  English 
politics,  was  put  forward  by  Sancroft,  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  at  this  time  a  very  popular  personage, 
from  the  fact  that  he  had  figured  at  the  head  of  the 
Seven  Bishops,  whose  acquittal  on  a  charge  of 
seditious  libel  had  been  the  signal  for  the  first  flight 
of  James.  The  Primate,  though  his  treatment  by  the 
King  had,  for  the  time,  broken  down  his  conviction 
of   the    duty   oi   non-resistance,    shrunk    from    every 

4 


34  THE   GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

project    which    looked    like    a    forcible    deposition. 

After  long"  reflection,  he  had  matured  a  proposal  for 
a  Regency,  a  scheme  which,  while  professedly 
recognising  James  as  King  de  jure,  should  allow  the 
royal  powers  to  be  exercised  by  a  guardian  to  be 
chosen  by  the  nation.  There  was  more  than  one 
precedent  for  such  a  plan  in  English  history.  The 
kingdom  had  been  governed  by  Regents  during  the 
minorities  of  Henry  III.,  Richard  II.,  and  Kdward 
VI. ;  there  had  been  something  of  the  kind  during 
the  last  years  of  Kdward  1 1.,  and  during  the  decay 
of  Henry  VI.  It  is  true  that,  even  in  the  first  group 
of  cases,  in  which  the  Regency  had  been  exercised 
during  the  infancy  of  the  monarch,  the  results  had 
not  been  altogether  happy.  The  quarrels  between 
Hubert  de  Burgh  and  the  foreign  ecclesiastics, 
between  John  of  Gaunt  and  his  many  rivals, 
between  Somerset  and  Warwick,  had  convulsed 
the  realm  ;  and  the  fictitious  Regencies  of  Mortimer 
and  York  had  been  even  more  stormy.  Still,  the 
Archbishop's  proposal  could  not  be  treated  as 
quite  visionary.  It  appealed  to  a  hope  which 
dominated  the  minds  of  a  large  number  of  English- 
men—the hope  that  the  present  difficulty  might  be 
overcome  without  any  open  violation  of  allegiance. 
It  was  also,  no  doubt,  acceptable  to  those  members 
of  Sherlock's  party  who  saw  that  their  own  scheme 
was  impossible  at  the  moment  ;  for  it  held  out  a 
distinct  opening  for  the  return  of  James  at  a  future 
date.  A  Regency  is  by  its  nature  a  temporary 
arrangement.  It  presupposes  a  possibility  that  the 
monarch  may  some  day  reach  or  recover  a  state  of 


by]  [Walker  S  CockerclL 

ARCHBISHOP   SANCROFT    (1616-1693). 
Portrait  by  Lutterel,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


3(j  THE    GLORIOUS    REVOLUTION 

mind,  in  which  he  will  be  competent  to  exercise  the 
powers  of  royalty. 

The  real  objection  to  the  scheme  of  a  Regency 
was,  that  of  necessity  it  prolonged  a  state  of  affairs 
which  it  was  essential  to  put  an  end  to  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  Only  by  a  violent  fiction 
could  James  be  said  to  be  incapable  of  governing. 
No  doubt  he  was  incapable  of  governing  well  ;  but 
to  admit  that  when  a  King  ceases,  in  the  opinion  of 
his  subjects,  to  govern  well,  he  may  be  superseded  in 
the  exercise  of  his  office,  would  have  been  to  admit 
the  doctrine  of  resistance  in  its  most  extreme  form — 
a  conclusion,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  abhorrent  to 
Sancroft  and  his  supporters.  They  could  not  long 
have  ignored  the  existence  of  James,  nor  continued 
long  to  recognise  a  Regent  who  acted  in  constant 
defiance  of  his  wishes.  One  of  the  bitterest  charges 
brought  by  the  Royalists  against  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment had  been,  that  it  dared  to  use  the  name  of 
the  King  to  sanction  measures  of  hostility  against 
the  King.  But  here  were  the  legitimate  successors 
d{  the  Royalists  proposing  to  do  the  very  thing 
which  their  fathers  had  abhorred.  The  arrangement 
would  have  led  to  constant  quarrels  and  doubts.  It 
would  have  perpetuated  a  system  of  dual  govern- 
ment utterly  unworkable  and  intolerable.  In  fact, 
the  elements  of  the  system  were  just  then  in 
existence.  There  was  one  King  at  Whitehall  and 
another  at  St.  Germains.  The  supporters  of  Sancroft 
found  this  state  of  things  intolerable;  and  they 
proposed  to  get  over  the  difficulty  by  making  it 
perpetual ! 


MARY   OF  ORANGE  37 

A  third  scheme,  far  more  practical,  if  less 
attractive,  was  that  of  Danby,  the  astute  but 
unscrupulous  Minister  of  Charles  II.  Danby  pro- 
posed to  admit  the  demise  of  the  Crown,  and  to 
assume  that,  by  strict  hereditary  right,  the  title  to 
the  throne  had  descended  upon  Man-,  the  wife  of 
William  of  Orange,  the  eldest  child  of  James  II. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  if  this  ingenious 
scheme  could  have  secured  acceptance  by  the  nation, 
it  would  have  obviated  many  of  the  difficulties 
attaching  to  the  position.  The  chief  cause  of 
James's  unpopularity  was  his  religion  ;  but  Mary  was 
a  firm  Protestant.  James  was  morose  and  cruel  ; 
but  Mary  was  gay  and  gentle-hearted,  of  blameless 
life,  beautiful,  and  thoroughly  English.  Though  as 
yet  she  had  borne  no  children,  she  was  but  twenty- 
six,  and,  even  if  her  issue  failed,  her  sister  Anne  was 
the  mother  of  a  large  family.  She  was  intensely 
popular  in  Holland;  and  there  seemed  to  be  no 
reason  why  she  should  not  be  equally  popular  in 
England.  In  the  reiijn  of  Elizabeth  England  had 
been  glorious  under  the  rule  of  a  woman  ;  and, 
though  Mary  was  married  to  a  man  who  certainly 
could  not  be  treated  as  a  nonentity,  yet  William  of 
Orange  had  vast  affairs  on  the  Continent  to  occupy 
his  time,  and  might  be  kept  out  of  English  politics. 
Danby  hoped  to  conciliate  the  Whigs  by  his  premises, 
and  the  Tories  by  his  conclusions.  He  thought 
that  the  Whigs  would  be  flattered  by  a  recognition 
of  the  vacancy  of  the  throne,  and  the  Tories  by  ;i 
recognition  of  the  claims  of  hereditary  descent.  He 
was  wrong.     In  spite  of  the  constitutional  orthodoxy 


323140 


38  THE    GLORIOUS   REVOLVTIOh 

of  the  expression  "  demise  of  the  Crown,"  the  Tories 
maintained  that  this  demise  could  only  take  place 
by  the  death  of  the  monarch,  or,  at  the  very  least, 
by  his  voluntary  resignation.  The  Whigs  desired 
something  more  than  a  mere  change  of  monarchs. 
Strange  to  say,  both  parties  agreed  to  ignore  a  fact 
which,  to  the  modern  historian,  seems  the  most  effec- 
tive bar  to  the  success  of  Danby's  scheme,  viz.,  the 
existence  of  the  little  Prince  of  Wales,  afterwards 
known  as  the  Old  Pretender,  whose  flight  with  his 
mother,  on  the  eve  of  William's  entry  into  London, 
had  been  one  of  the  most  dramatic  incidents  of 
the  crisis.  But,  as  is  well  known,  the  absurd  mystery 
which  had  been  spun  about  the  event  of  his  birth 
had  ended  by  convincing  a  people  very  willing  to  be 
convinced,  that  the  unfortunate  child  was  no  offspring 
of  James  and  his  wife,  but  a  deliberate  fraud  upon 
the  nation.  The  warming-pan  theory  held  the  field 
till  some  months  had  expired.  And,  in  spite  of  its 
general  unpopularity,  Danby's  scheme  might,  in  the 
close  balance  of  parties,  have  turned  the  scale,  but 
for  the  existence  of  a  simple  fact,  of  a  kind  not 
infrequently  overlooked  by  the  cold  calculations  of 
politicians,  but  not  infrequently  fatal  to  their  most 
crafty  schemes — the  loyal  impulse  of  a  woman's 
heart.  It  did  not  occur  to  Danby,  that  Mary  might 
not  be  eager  to  grasp  the  dazzling  prize  held  out 
to  her. 

Fourthly,  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  timid  and 
fictitious  schemes  of  Sancroft  and  Danby,  was  the 
bold  proposal  of  the  Whigs,  who  declared  that 
James,  by  his  conduct,  had  forfeited  the  Crown,  and 


Photo  by]  {Walker  &  Cockerell. 

THOMAS    HOBBES   (OF    MALMESBURY)    (1588-1679). 

Portrait  by  J.  .1/.  Wright,  in  the  National  Portrait  Cattery. 


40  THE   GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

that  it  devolved  on  Parliament,  as  representing  the 
nation,  to  bestow  it  upon  a  more  worth)-  wearer. 
Forced  to  recognise  the  fact  that  no  formal  authority 
for  such  a  proposition  could  be  produced,  though 
there  was  more  than  one  precedent  for  it  in  the 
course  of  English  history,  the  Whigs  fell  back  upon 
a  political  theory  which  was  then  in  great  vogue. 
This  was  the  famous  doctrine  of  an  Original 
Contract,  by  virtue  of  which  all  political  society  was 
alleged  to  have  arisen  out  of  an  agreement,  or  series 
of  agreements,  between  or  amongst  rulers  and  ruled. 
The  vagueness  of  this  theory,  which,  towards  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  almost 
superseded  the  older  theories  of  the  State,  may  be 
judged  of  by  the  fact  that,  in  the  hands  of  the  rival 
parties,  it  led  to  directly  opposite  results  in  practical 
politics.  The  form  adopted  by  the  Tories  was  that 
rendered  famous  by  1  lobbes,  who  saw  in  the  Original 
Contract  a  final  surrender  of  all  political  power  into 
the  hands  of  an  absolute  ruler,  by  a  number  of 
individuals  who  by  that  act  alone  became  a  com- 
munity. It  is  true  that  Hobbes  admitted  that  this 
ruler  need  not  be  a  single  individual  ;  but  the 
admission  was  not  of  great  value  for  practical 
purposes,  for  no  responsible  statesman  in  1688 
contended  that  the  sovereign  power  in  England 
was  vested  in  the  Houses  without  the  King.  And 
Hobbes  himself,  despite  his  alleged  religious 
unorthodoxy.  was  universally  recognised  as  the 
champion  of  Royalism.  But  the  Whigs  adopted  the 
form  of  the  theory  stated  by  the  illustrious  Locke, 
who  regarded  the  Original  Contract,  not  so  much  as 


JOHN    LOCKE   (1632-I704). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kncller. 


42  THE   GLORIOUS  REVOLUTION 

an  agreement  between  individual  subjects  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  ruler  on  the  other,  as  an  agreement 
between  these  individuals  to  form  a  community, 
which  should,  from  time  to  time,  entrust  a  ruler  for 
their  benefit  with  certain  prescribed  powers,  any 
abuse  of  which  implicitly  revoked  his  authority,  and 
justified  the  community — not  necessarily  the  I  louses 
of  Parliament — in  appointing  a  successor,  and  in 
revising  the  terms  of  his  appointment.  Inasmuch 
as  the  Whigs  had  been  the  real  instigators  of  the 
invitation  to  William,  though  men  of  all  parties  had 
actually  signed  the  invitation,  there  could  be  very 
little  doubt  that  their  wish  was  to  make  William 
King.  Inasmuch,  also,  as  the  choice  of  a  Regent 
by  Sancroft's  party,  if  they  were  victorious,  could 
hardly  fall  upon  any  one  else,  it  might  seem  that  the 
only  real  questions  at  issue  were  as  to  the  respective 
claims  of  William  and  Mary,  and  the  new  conditions, 
if  any,  to  be  imposed  upon  the  monarch.  And  yet 
the  decision  of  these  questions,  as  we  shall  see,  gave 
rise  to  considerable  discussion,  and  no  little  difficulty. 
The  first  definite  step  towards  a  settlement  was 
the  voluntary  assembly  of  about  thirty  peers  at  the 
Guildhall  of  London  on  December  n,  1688.  This 
meeting,  though  it  included  the  two  Archbishops, 
was  not  by  any  means  representative  of  the  political 
activity  of  the  time  ;  but  the  voluntary  adhesion 
to  it  of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen  greatly 
strengthened  its  position,  and  it  must  certainly 
receive  the  credit  of  making  the  first  attempt  at 
reconstruction.  It  confined  itself  to  voting  an 
address  to  William,  expressing  its  confidence  in  his 


ASSEMBLY   OF  PEEJRS  43 

ability  and  willingness  to  serve  the  nation,  and 
praying  him  to  procure  the  calling"  of  a  free  Parlia- 
ment. The  caution  of  its  leaders  was  manifest  in  the 
grounds  which  it  offered  for  its  request,  being  none 
other  than  that  James  himself  had  approved  of  and 
actually  initiated  such  a  plan.1  But  it  is  not  a  little 
remarkable,  that  a  close  meeting,  in  which  the 
Archbishops  must  have  played  such  a  prominent  part, 
should  have  openly  expressed  a  wish  for  "  a  due 
liberty  to  Protestant  Dissenters." 

Encouraged  by  this  address,  and  by  a  warm  in- 
vitation from  the  City  of  London,  which  immediately 
followed  it,  William  summoned  a  meeting  of  about 
sixty  peers  to  St.  James's  for  December  21st,  and  then, 
having  briefly  requested  them  to  take  steps  for  the 
settlement  of  affairs,  he  withdrew  from  the  room,  and 
left  them  to  their  own  counsels.  In  spite  of  this 
ostentatious  freedom  of  discussion,  the  peers  who 
assembled  expressed  a  preference  for  Westminster  as 
a  place  of  debate,  and  resolved,  in  fact,  to  reconstitute 
themselves  without  delay  as  the  House  of  Lords. 
Since  most  of  the  judges  were  out  of  town,  they 
named  five  eminent  counsel  to  act  as  their  advisers 
on  constitutional  points. 

The  move  to  Westminster  being  immediately 
followed  by  the  adhesion  of  thirty  more  peers, 
William  determined  to  take  a  further  step  towards 
the  restoration  of  regular  government,  by  summoning 
all  the  surviving  members  of  Charles  II.'s  Parliament, 
together     with     the    aldermen    and    councillors     of 

1  Some  of  the  writs  had  actually  been  issued  ;  but  they  were  recalled 
by  James  on  the  eve  of  his  second  flight. 


44  THE    GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

London,  to  St.  James's,  where  he  invited  them 
to  advise  freely  upon  the  best  means  to  effect  a 
speedy  settlement.  They,  following  the  precedent  of 
the  peers,  likewise  resolved  to  adjourn  to  Westminster, 
and  there  constituted  themselves  a  House  of  Commons, 
with  a  Speaker.  Two  days  later,  on  Christmas  Day, 
the  peers  resolved  to  address  William,  advising  him 
to  summon  a  regular  Parliament  for  the  22nd  of 
January,  and,  in  the  meantime,  to  act  as  Adminis- 
trator of  Public  Affairs ;  similar  resolutions  were 
carried  in  the  assembly  of  Commons  on  the  following 
day.  The  Sherlock  party  made  a  feeble  attempt  in 
both  Houses  to  avoid  a  final  breach  with  James.  In 
the  Lords,  Nottingham  actually  moved  that  the  King, 
who  was  still  at  Rochester,  should  be  addressed  to 
issue  writs  similar  to  those  which,  a  few  days  before, 
he  had  recalled,  urging,  with  pedantic  accuracy,  that 
no  Parliament  could  be  "regular"  which  was  not 
summoned  by  a  King.  In  the  Commons,  Sir  Robert 
Sawyer  I  could  not  conceive  how  it  was  possible  for 
William  to  act  as  Administrator  without  distinguish- 
ing name  or  title — an  objection  which  was  overruled 
by  the  caustic  remark  of  old  Serjeant  Maynard,  who 
suggested  that  if  the  Assembly  waited  until  Sir 
Robert's  intelligence  had  solved  that  problem,  it 
might  have  to  wait  long  enough.  In  fact,  there  was 
an  extremely  convenient  precedent,  of  recent  date, 
for    the    Convention    Parliament   which    the    Houses 


ni 


1  Tin'  objection  is  sometimes  attributed  to  Sir  Roberl  Southwi 
initials  only  being  used  in  the  original  report.  But,  as  Macaulay 
remarks,  the  point  is  far  more  characteristic  of  Sawyer,  who  bad  been 
a  Jacobite  Law  <  )fficer. 


SECOND   CONVENT/OX  PARLIAMENT  45 

proposed  to  create,  in  the  similar  assembly  which  had 
recalled  Charles  II.,  and  carried  out  the  Restoration. 
It  would  have  been  awkward  for  the  Tories  to  admit 
any  doubts  of  the  legality  of  a  body  which  had 
effected  such  a  glorious  achievement,  and  difficult  to 
argue  that  a  Convention  which  assembled  at  the  call 
of  William  was  less  powerful  than  one  which  had 
assembled  at  the  call  of  Monk.  Accordingly,  it  was 
resolved  that  the  regular  machinery  should  be 
restored  as  soon  as  possible,  even  though  irregular 
means  were  used  to  restore  it.  And  so  Letters 
Missive  of  William  took  the  place  of  the  regular 
royal  writs  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that  these, 
instead  of  being  sent  to  the  sheriffs,  as  was  usual, 
were  directed  to  the  coroners  of  the  counties  and  the 
chief  magistrates  of  the  boroughs.1  The  elections 
took  place  without  disturbance  ;  and,  on  January  22, 
1689,  the  Convention  Parliament  met  to  essay  its 
task  of  settlement. 

The  very  first  step  taken  by  each  House  was 
suggestive  of  the  ultimate  issue  of  its  debates.  The 
Lords  chose,  as  temporary  Speaker,  the  Marquis  of 
Halifax,  who,  though  his  well-known  nickname  of 
"  Trimmer  "  seemed  to  negative  any  decided  attitude 
on  the  great  question  of  the  day,  was  generally 
suspected  of  Whig  leanings.  His  unsuccessful 
opponent  was  Danby,  the  author  of  the  proposal  to 
seat  Mary  on  the  throne  by  hereditary  right.  In  the 
Commons  Henry  Powle,  or  Powell,  a  well-known 
Whig,    was    chosen    in    opposition    to    Sir    Edward 

1  The  sheriffs  had,  of  course,  been  appointed  by  James  ;  the  coroners 
and  chief  magistrates  of  boroughs  were  mostly  elective  officials. 


46  THE    GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

Seymour,  the  great  Tory  squire  of  the  west  country, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Seymour  had  openly 
welcomed  William  on  his  progress  to  London.1 

But,  whatever  acute  observers  may  have  augured 
of  the  final  event,  it  soon  became  clear  that,  at  any 
rate  in  the  Lords'  House,  the  Tories  were  not  going 
to  give  way  without  a  struggle.  The  first  business 
was  to  provide  for  the  temporary  continuance  of  the 
administration  ;  and  both  Houses  agreed  in  request- 
ing William  to  continue  the  task  which  he  had  so 
satisfactorily  begun.  Both  Houses  seem  also  to  have 
agreed  (for  reasons  which  are  not  altogether  clear) 
that  the  actual  business  of  deliberation  could  not  be 
immediately  commenced.  But,  when  the  Commons 
appointed  the  28th  of  January  for  going  into  Com- 
mittee on  the  State  of  the  Nation,  a  determined 
effort  was  made  by  the  Regency  party,  headed  by 
Nottingham,  Clarendon,  and  Rochester,  to  bring  on 
the  debate  in  the  Lords  on  the  25th,  and  thus  to 
secure  the  advantage  of  priority  for  the  plan  which 
they  hoped  to  be  able  to  carry.  This  scheme  was, 
however,  frustrated  by  a  combination  of  Danby  and 
Halifax,  who  secured  the  postponement  of  the  Lords' 
debate  until  the  29th.  What  precisely  were  Danby's 
hopes  in  joining  in  this  manoeuvre,  it  is  difficult  to 
say.  But  the  step,  formal  as  it  may  appear,  was 
really  of  vital  importance  ;  for  it  practically  left  the 
initiative  to   the  Commons'    House. 

1  It  is  of  this  occasion  that  a  well-known  story  is  related.  William, 
intending  to  he  very  gracious  t«>  Seymour,  said.  "  I  think.  Sir  Edward, 
you  are  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset's  family."  "  Pardon  me,  Sir,'' 
replied   Sir   Edward,    "the   Duke  of  Somerset  is  of  my   family.'' 


THE    TWO   RESOLUTIONS  47 

When  the  28th  arrived,  it  was  clear  that  the  Whicr 
sentiment  was  in  great  preponderance  amongst  the 
elected   representatives  of  the  people.     While  there 
was  manifested    a  strong  dislike   to  any  expression 
which   could    be   construed    into    an    admission    that 
James  had  been  deprived  of,  or  forcibly  driven  from 
the  throne,   there    was    an  overwhelming   feeling    in 
favour  of  taking  advantage    of  the  situation   which 
James  had  himself  created  by  his  flight.    A  feeble  plea 
for  a  Regency  put  forward  by  Heneage  Finch,  and  a 
suggestion  by  Lord  Fanshaw   of  a   further  adjourn- 
ment, were  fiercely  overruled,  and,  after  a  few  hours' 
debate,  a  form  of  words,  illogical  in  itself,  but  accept- 
able from   its  very  want  of  logic   and  clearness,  was 
devised  to  meet  objections  of  detail.     It  was  resolved, 
apparently  without  a  division,  "  that  King  James  the 
Second,   having   endeavoured    to   subvert    the    Con- 
stitution of  the   Kingdom,   by   breaking  the  Original 
Contract   between    King   and    people,   and,    by    the 
advice  of  Jesuits,  and   other  wicked   persons,   having 
violated  the  fundamental  Laws,  and  having  withdrawn 
himself    out    of  this    Kingdom,    has    abdicated    the 
government,  and  that  the  Throne  is  thereby  become 
vacant."       On    the    following   day,    the    House    also 
voted,  uem.  con.,  "that   it  hath   been  found,  by  ex- 
perience,   to    be    inconsistent    with    the    safety   and 
welfare  of  this  Protestant  Kingdom,  to  be  governed 
by  a    Popish    prince,"    and    further,    in    view    of  the 
necessary  consequences  of  these  two  votes,  appointed 
a    committee,    though    not    without    opposition,    to 
propose  such  guarantees   as   should  be   necessary  to 
secure  the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  nation. 


48  THE    GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

Meanwhile,  the  first  resolution  had  reached  the 
House  of  Lords,  where  it  was  the  subject  of 
acrimonious  debate.  A  powerful  speech  by  Notting- 
ham, in  favour  of  the  Regency  plan,  was  opposed  by 
the  combined  forces  of  Halifax  and  Danby  ;  but 
Nottingham's  motion,  in  spite  of  the  significant 
absence  of  Sancroft,  was  only  defeated  by  two  votes, 
all  the  Bishops  present,  with  the  exception  of  London 
and  Bristol,  voting  in  its  favour.  An  equally  stub- 
born debate  upon  the  apparently  academic,  but 
really  very  practical  question  of  the  Original  Contract, 
resulted  in  a  second  defeat  of  the  Nottingham  party 
by  seven  votes.  But  all  the  persuasion  of  Halifax 
and  Danby  could  not  bring  the  House  to  agree  with 
the  Commons  in  declaring  the  throne  vacant ;  and 
the  majority  also  insisted  on  denying  that  James  had 
"abdicated,"  though  they  were  willing  to  admit  that 
he  had  "  deserted  "  the  throne.  The  fact  that  this 
vote  was  put  on  the  30th  of  January,  the  sacred 
anniversary  of  Royalists,  may  have  had  something 
to  do  with  deciding  waverers. 

The  following  day  was  observed,  by  agreement  of 
both  Houses,  as  a  day  of  Thanksgiving  for  the 
deliverance  wrought  by  William  for  the  nation.  On 
the  1st  of  February  occurred  an  incident  which  at 
that  time,  in  almost  an)-  country  but  England,  would 
have  been  the  signal  for  violence,  viz.,  a  tumultuous 
and  disorderly  petition,  in  favour  of  a  speedy  settle- 
ment, by  the  citizens  of  London.  Then  appeared 
the  wisdom  of  the  apparently  formal  delegation  to 
William  of  the  conduct  of  affairs  during  the  crisis. 
William,   acting   under    this    mandate,   directed    the 


THE   FREE   CONFERENCE  49 

Lord  Mayor  to  issue  his  precept  to  the  municipal 
authorities  to  maintain  order  at  their  peril;  and  the 
direction  was  promptly  obeyed.  The  incident  did 
not  in  the  least  interrupt  the  deliberate  conduct  of 
the  Houses,  the  Commons,  on  the  following  day, 
resolving  to  support  with  formal  reasons  their  refusal 
of  the  Lords'  amendments. 

The  two  Conferences  between  the  Houses  which 
followed  this  resolution  are,  despite  the  apparent 
technicality  and  tediousness  of  the  debate,  well  worth 
a  study,  though  it  would  be  impossible,  in  the  space 
at  our  disposal,  to  trace  their  history  in  detail.  The 
Lords  having,  at  the  first  or  formal  meeting, 
adhered  to  their  resolutions,  and  the  Commons 
having,  by  the  decisive  but  not  overwhelming 
majority  of  131,  decided  not  to  accept  the  Lords' 
amendments,  it  was  resolved,  on  the  5th  of  February, 
to  enter  upon  a  Free  Conference,  or  open  discussion, 
between  the  two  Houses,  through  the  agency  of  a 
deputation  appointed  from  each.  The  list  of  managers 
for  the  Commons  included  the  names  of  Maynard 
and  Holt,  two  of  the  greatest  lawyers  of  the  day ; 
of  Sir  Thomas  Littleton  and  Mr.  Sacheverel,  whose 
reputation  as  debaters  long  survived  in  the  House  ; 
of  Hampden,  grandson  of  the  great  Puritan  leader, 
and  equally  daring  in  the  cause  of  freedom,  but  less 
cool  and  judicious  than  his  noble  grandfather  ; 
above  all,  of  Somers,  the  rising  hope  of  the  Whig 
party,  then  at  the  very  outset  of  his  great  career, 
but  already  admired  and  trusted.  For  the  Lords, 
the  labouring  oar  was  pulled  by  Nottingham, 
Clarendon,  and    Rochester,  all    of   them,  it    will    be 

5 


CO  THE   GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

remembered,  identified  with  the  proposal  for  a 
Regency,  Danby  and  Halifax  remaining  judiciously 
in  the  background. 

It  soon  appeared  that  the  acrimonious  discussion 
on  the  use  of  the  word  "  abdicate  "  was  merely  a 
screen  for  an  uneasy  doubt  which  had  been  roused  in 
the  minds  of  the  Tories  by  the  wording  of  the  last 
resolution  of  the  Commons.  When  the  latter  urged 
that  the  throne  was  vacant,  did  they  mean  to  imply 
that  the  Crown  of  England  was  elective  ?  This  fatal 
suspicion,  happily  for  the  peace  of  the  nation, 
leaked  out  at  a  comparatively  early  stage,  through 
the  proposal  of  Nottingham  to  amend  the  resolution 
by  declaring  the  throne  vacant  only  "as  to  King 
James."  1  he  fiery  Sacheverel  met  the  proposal 
with  an  emphatic  negative  ;  but  Somers,  eagerly 
grasping  at  the  chance  of  a  settlement,  hinted,  in  a 
very  judicious  speech,  that  the  Commons  were  in  no 
way  anxious  to  push  consequences  to  an  extreme, 
and  would  be  quite  content  to  solve  a  practical 
problem.  The  opening  thus  happily  made  was 
rapidly  extended.  In  spite  of  a  fierce  protest  from 
Clarendon,  in  spite  of  the  more  dangerous  unwilling- 
ness of  the  extreme  Whigs  to  give  up  their  claims, 
Somers  held  on  his  course  for  a  compromise  ;  and 
at  length  Nottingham  wound  up  the  case  for  the 
Lords  with  a  very  broad  hint  that  a  basis  of  settle- 
ment had  been  reached. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
Regency  party  had  been  convinced  solely  by  the 
acutenessof  Holt  and  the  judicious  temper  of  Somers. 
While  the  dispute  between  the  two  Houses  had  been 


REGENCY   SCHEME   FA  IIS  5  I 

going  on,  two  external  facts  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance had  occurred.  Dauby,  full  of  confidence  that 
his  plan,  for  proclaiming  Mary  Queen  by  hereditary 
right,  would  not  fail  to  commend  itself  to  the  person 
most  concerned,  sent  over  to  Holland  to  assure  her 
of  his  extreme  devotion  to  what  he  conceived  to  be 
her  interests.  lie  was  staggered  to  receive  in  reply 
a  sharp  and  dignified  rebuke,  in  which  he  was 
informed  by  Mary,  that  nothing  could  be  more 
distasteful  to  her  than  a  plan  which  would  place  her 
in  a  position  of  rivalry  with  her  husband,  and,  in 
fact,  ordered  to  cease  meddling  with  matters  which 
he  did  not  understand.  To  the  author  of  the  Treaty 
of  Dover,  such  a  letter  meant  one  of  two  things — 
either  that  the  writer  was  an  idiot,  or  that  she  had 
some  deep-laid  scheme  which  his  efforts  threatened 
to  cross.  But,  whilst  he  was  hesitating  whether  to 
regard  Mary  with  contempt  or  admiration,  Danby 
learnt  that  his  letter,  together  with  a  copy  of  Mary's 
reply,  had  been  put  into  William's  hands,  and  he 
saw  that  his  scheme  was  at  an  end. 

It  was  now  time  to  dispose  of  the  Regency  plan. 
To  this  end  William  himself  summoned  a  few 
leading  politicians  to  his  presence,  and  delivered 
his  sentiments.  His  attitude  was  thoroughly  correct. 
He  did  not  in  the  least  dispute  the  right  of  the 
Houses  to  adopt  any  plan  which  seemed  to  them 
best  for  the  settlement  of  the  nation.  If  they 
thought  a  Regency  best,  he  had  no  wish  to  oppose 
their  view.  But  he  thought  it  might  save  time  if  he 
made  it  quite  clear  that  he  would  not  act  as  Regent, 
either  for  James  or  for  Mar)'.     Danby,  who  was  present 


52  THE    GLORIOUS   RRVOIA'TION 

at  the  meeting,  must  have  looked  exquisitely  foolish. 
I  Living  no  morals  and  very  little  dignity  of  his  own, 
he  had  assumed,  as  fundamental   axioms,  that  Mary 
would  eagerly  grasp  the  Crown,  and    that   William 
would  be  only  too  glad  to  get  anything  in   the  way 
of  power.     Though  William  made  no  change  in  his 
courtesy  of  demeanour    towards   him,  he  must  have 
known    that    his   duplicity  was  open   to  the    King's 
eyes,  that    the  evidence  of  it  was   possibly  at    that 
moment  in  the  King's  pocket.     He    must  have  felt 
that   the  game  was  up.     Every  one  knew   that  the 
departure  of  William  from  England  must  be  followed 
by   anarchy,   probably  by  bloodshed.      It    was  quite 
clear    that  there    was    nothing    to    be   done    but    to 
proclaim   William   King,   and  to  get    over    the  legal 
difficulty  with  as  much  decency  as  possible.     Halifax, 
indeed,  declared    openly   for    making   William    sole 
monarch  ;    but     Mary's     honest     friends     were     so 
indignant   at  this  proposal  that    Halifax    gave  way, 
and   it   was  agreed   that    William   and    Mary   should 
be   joint  rulers,  William    being    entrusted   with   the 
actual  administration  during  his   life.      In   the  event 
of  Mary  having  no  children,  the  Princess  Anne  and 
her    heirs    were    to    succeed    on     the    death    of    the 
survivor.     If  William  survived    Mary,  and   had  issue 
by  another   wife,  they  were  to  be  entitled  after  the 
failure  of  Anne's   issue. 

Only  one  thing  more  remained  to  be  done  to 
effect  a  settlement ;  but  this  one  thing  threatened  to 
take  time.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Commons 
had,  on  the  29th  of  January,  appointed  a  committee 
to  draw    up   proposals  for  an   alteration  of  the  con- 


COXSTITUTIONAL    REFORMS  53 

stitution,  with  a  view  to  the  better  security  of 
popular  liberties  and  the  Protestant  religion  in  the 
future.  On  the  2nd  of  February  the  committee  had 
reported  twenty-three  Resolutions,  to  which  the 
House  added ^fiVe  on  its  own  account.  It  was 
desired,  {\yio  declare  illegal  the  exercise  of  the 
royal  claim  to  suspend  or  dispense  with  the  execu- 
tion of  statutes,  (2)  the  existence  of  the  Court  of 
High  Commission  and  others  like  it,  (3;fthe  attempt 
to  levy  money  without  the  consent  of  Parliament, 
(4)  the  commitment  of  peopje  to  prison  for  petition- 
ing the  Crown,  and  (5^fhe  raising  or  keeping  of 
a  standing  army  within  the  kingdom,  in  time  of 
peace,  without  the  consent  of  Parliament  ;  (6)^to 
sanction  the  keeping  of  arms  by  Protestants  for 
their  own  defence  ;  (7)-te-~g~uarantee  the  freedom  of 
elections  and  the  security  of  Parliamentary  privileges; 

(8)  to-pfovide  for  the  frequent  holding  of  Parliaments  ; 

(9)  Jxj-pfbhibit  the  requirement  of  excessive  bail,  and 
the  imposition  of  excessive  fines  and  illegal 
punishments;  (10)  to  reform  the  abuses  of  the  jury 
system  ;  (11)  to  declare  void  all  grants  of  fines  and 
forfeitures  before  conviction;  (12)  to  prohibit 
marriage  with  a  Papist  by  any  member  of  the  royal 
family;  (13)  to  compel  every  occupant  of  the  throne 
on  his  accession  to  take  an  oath  to  uphold  the 
Protestant  religion,  and  to  reform  the  Coronation 
Oath;  (14)  to  declare  the  Acts  concerning  the 
Militia  grievous  to  the  subject;  (15)  to  secure  a 
sitting  Parliament  against  interruption  while  business 
remained  to  be  done;  (16)  to  shorten  the  duration 
of    Parliaments;    (17)  to  declare  a  royal  pardon  no 


54  THE    GLORIOUS    REVOLUTION 

defence  to  an  impeachment  in  Parliament;  (18)  to 
protect  Corporations  against  the  abuse  of  Quo 
Warranto  proceedings;  (19)  to  secure  liberty  of 
Protestant  worship  and  the  uniting  of  Protestants 
for  public  worship,  "so  far  as  maybe";  (20)  to 
modify  the  construction  of  Treason  statutes,  and 
reform  trials  for  treasons;  (21)  to  give  judges 
security  of  tenure  and  salary  ;  (22)  to  reform  abuses 
in  the  appointment  of  sheriffs  and  the  exercise  of 
their  office;  (23)  to  abolish  prosecutions  by  way  of 
information;  (24)  to  regulate  Courts  of  Justice  and 
the  fees  of  office  ;  (25)  to  provide  against  the  buying 
and  selling  of  public  offices  ;  (26)  to  permit  the 
returns  made  to  writs  of  Habeas  Corpus  and 
Mandamus  to  be  traversed  ;  (27)  to  reform  abuses 
in   the  collection  of  the    Hearth  Tax   and   Excise. 

This  programme  was  evidently  too  comprehensive 
to  be  carried  out  in  full  before  the  settlement  of  the 
actual  crisis.  But  it  is  surprising  to  notice  how 
much  of  it  was  achieved  within  a  short  time.  The 
first  eleven  items  were  immediately  embodied  in  the 
Declaration  of  Right,  <>n  the  acceptance  of  which 
William  and  Mary  became,  on  the  [3th  of  February, 
King  and  Queen  of  England  ;  and  these,  with  the 
addition  of  the  12th  and  13th,  were  incorporated  into 
the  Bill  of  Rights  passed  in  full  legal  form  during" 
tin-  next  session.  Even  before  that  date,  other 
statutes  had  provided  a  new  Coronation  Oath, 
secured  a  limited  amount  of  toleration  for  Protestant 
Dissenters,  and  abolished  the  hated  Hearth  Money. 
In  1694  the  Triennial  Act  limited  the  duration  of 
Parliament  to  three  years.      In   1695  a  noble  statute 


REVOLUTION  POLICY  ?? 

reformed  the  abuses  of  trials  for  treason.     The  Act 
of   Settlement    in    1700     provided    that    no    pardon 
should  be   pleadable  to   an    impeachment,  and   gave 
the   judges  security    of   tenure.     Although    criminal 
Informations  have  not  been  abolished,  a  statute  of  the 
year  1692  destroyed  their  most  objectionable  feature, 
by  compelling   informers   to  give   security  for  costs, 
and  allowing  expenses  to  successful  defendants.    The 
abuses    of   sheriff-process    were    reformed    in     17 16. 
Although  no  great  change  in  the  Militia  system  was 
effected  until   1757,  it  is  probable  that  the  grievances 
of  which   the   Committee  complained   in    1689    soon 
disappeared,    as    the    Militia    itself    soon    sank    into 
decay.     On    the   other   hand,   the   demand   for   fixed 
sessions  of   Parliament   died    away,    as   it   gradually 
became    manifest   that    a    dissolution    might    be    the 
most    popular    of    measures  ;    and    the    demand    for 
security  of  Corporations  was  gradually  replaced  by  a 
movement  for  their  reform.      Unhappily,  the  sale  of 
public  offices,  though   already  illegal,1   continued  to 
flourish    with    the    consent   of  all    parties,    until   the 
sweeping  reforms  associated  with  the  great  name  of 
Burke    rendered    it    no    longer    profitable,    and    the 
abuses   of  the  Excise  system    fell   beneath  the  same 
vigorous  hand.     But  it  is  no  small  testimony  to  the 
sagacity  of  the  men   of  the  Revolution,  that  only  in 
the  matter  of  dissolution  of  Parliament  has  posterity 

1  Ii  had  been  prohibited  by  statute  in  138N,  and  again  in  155-""-  In 
1S09  the  prohibition  was  once  move  renewed,  at  last  with  effect. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  even  the  saintly  Colonel 
I  Iutchinson  treated  the  purchase  of  an  office  as  an  ordinary  investment 
of  money.     (Life,  p.  67.) 


56  THE    GLORIOUS   REVOLUTION 

made  any  change  in  their  policy  ;  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  anything  short  of  a  crisis  such  as  that  of 
1715  could  have  justified  the  passing  of  the 
Septennial   Act. 

The  really  striking  feature  of  the  Revolution  is, 
however,  to  be  found,  not  in  its  details,  important 
as  these  were,  but  in  its  general  character.  However 
much  the  defenders  of  hereditary  right  and  non- 
resistance  might  disguise  the  fact  from  themselves, 
however  willing  their  opponents  might  be  to  con- 
ciliate their  feelings,  no  man  could  fail  to  see  that 
those  principles  had  been  definitely  defeated.  The 
Revolution  affirmed,  in  the  most  practical  way, 
that  disobedience  to  the  law  on  the  part  of  a 
monarch  entailed  forfeiture  of  the  Crown,  and  that 
to  the  nation  only  did  it  belong  to  bestow  that 
Crown  elsewhere,  and  on  new  conditions.  No  doubt 
the  nation,  unwilling  to  shock  long-established 
traditions,  had  sought  for  a  successor  to  James 
among  his  near  relations.  It  would  have  been 
criminal  folly  to  do  otherwise.  But  no  doubt  either 
can  there  be  that,  if  Mary  and  Anne  had  professed 
the  religion  of  their  father,  they  also  would  have 
been  passed  over,  and  a  champion  sought  else- 
where. It  may  be  said  that  this  fact  involved  no 
new  principle,  that  Richard  II.  and  Henry  VI.  had 
been  deposed  for  incompetency,  and  Charles  I.  for 
treachery.  But  these  changes  had  been  effected  by 
a  violence  which,  in  Charles's  case  at  least,  had 
brought  swift  reaction.  Not  a  drop  of  English 
blood  had  been  shed  during  the  momentous  events 
of   108S-9.     Without   violence  or  bloodshed,  with  a 


A    LIMITED   MONARCHY  57 

deliberation  and  a  formality  which,  if  they  were  not 
technically  legal,  had  at  least  all  the  appearance, 
and  much  of  the  reality,  of  law,  the  nation  had 
solemnly  asserted  the  doctrine  that  kings,  like  other 
persons,  must  be  held  responsible  for  their  actions. 
It  is  this  which  entitles  the  Revolution  to  its  proud 
epithet  of  "  glorious." 

It  is,  however,  necessary,  in  estimating  the 
character  of  the  Revolution,  to  bear  one  caution 
constantly  in  mind.  The  monarchy  which  it 
established  was  "  limited "  in  the  strictest  sense  of 
the  term  ;  for  it  was  a  monarchy  in  which  the  Crown 
was  bound  by  strictly  legal  limitations.  The  settle- 
ment of  1689  even  went  so  far  as  to  contemplate  an 
actual  refusal  of  allegiance,  in  the  event  of  a  breach 
by  the  monarch  of  its  fundamental  conditions.  It 
was  solemnly  provided,  by  the  Bill  of  Rights,  that  a 
profession  of  Romanism,  or  even  marriage  with  a 
Papist,  should  ipso  facto  disqualify  for  occupancy  of 
the  throne  ;  and  the  provision  remains  part  of  our 
statute  law,  though  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  could 
be  enforced  by  legal  methods.  But  of  the  modern 
conception  of  the  monarch  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
nation,  expressing  its  will  through  Parliament  and  the 
Cabinet,  the  Bill  of  Rights  gives  no  hint.  There  is  no 
allusion  in  it,  even  the  most  distant,  to  that  doctrine 
of  Ministerial  responsibility  which  we  now  regard  as  of 
the  essence  of  English  politics.  Doubtless  Halifax  and 
Somers,  and  perhaps  even  Danby,  expected  to  wield 
a  good  deal  of  power,  under  a  master  who  was  neces- 
sarily ignorant  of  English  affairs.  But  in  their  wildest 
dreams  they  probably  never  aspired  to  a  tithe  of  the 


58  THE    GLORIOUS    REVOLUTION 

power  exercised,  as  of  course,  by  the  Cabinet  Minister 
of  to-day.  In  one  sense,  no  doubt,  William  of  Orange 
was  well  fitted  by  experience  to  occupy  the  position 
of  a  British  monarch  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
lie  had  for  some  years  been  the  first  magistrate  of 
a  confederate  republic,  in  which  not  merely  every 
state,  but  almost  every  city,  claimed  an  independence 
which  we  should  now  consider  fatal  to  security  and 
vigour  in  administration.  Hut  it  may  very  well  be 
doubted  whether  his  experience  in  that  capacity  had 
at  all  disposed  him  to  play  a  still  humbler  part,  in 
a  country  for  which  he  felt  little  affection,  and  which 
had  for  him  little  enthusiasm.  I  lis  whole  attitude 
during  the  crisis  had  negatived  such  an  idea.  Whilst 
professing  perfect  resignation  to  the  decision  of  the 
Houses,  he  had  plainly  intimated  that,  if  he  stayed, 
he  stayed  as  a  master  and  not  as  a  servant.  That 
the  Revolution  of  [688-9  contained  in  itself  the 
germs  of  a  yet  profounder  Revolution,  no  one  at  the 
time  appears  to  have  seen. 


Ill 

THE    LAST    OF    THE    OLD    ORDER 

It  is  hardly  wonderful  that  the  ship  of  State  sailed 
uneasily  in  the  years  which  followed  the  crowning  of 
William    and    Mary.       The    obvious    dangers    which 
threatened  her  were  great ;  the  unseen  dangers  wer 
greater  still. 

No  one,  of  course,  could  for  a  moment  suppose 
that  James  would  accept  his  defeat  with  submission. 
A  few  miles  from  the  shores  of  England  lay  the 
dominions  of  a  Prince,  by  far  the  most  powerful  in 
Europe,  closely  allied  by  blood  and  faith  with  the 
exiled  King;  a  Prince,  moreover,  who  was  notoriously 
ready  to  champion  the  cause  of  the  oppressed,  even 
when  there  was  nothing  but  glory  to  be  gained  by 
the  cause.  To  Louis  XIV.  the  fall  of  James  was 
a  golden  opportunity  for  personal  aggrandisement. 
The  steady  expansion  of  France  during  the  previous 
thirty  years,  the  intense  Royalist  reaction  after  the 
troubles  of  the  Fronde,  the  concentrated  efforts  in 
various  spheres  of  activity  put  forward  by  a  series  of 
great    French    statesmen    and    warriors — Richelieu, 

59 


60         THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD   ORDER 

Mazaririj  Colbert,  Enghien  fConde),  Turcnne,   Vau- 
ban,    Louvois  --  had     raised    France    to    the    proud 
position    of    pre-eminence    so    recently    vacated    by 
Spain  ;  and  the  rulers  of  less  successful  States  were 
becoming  anxious  for  the  security  of  their  dominions. 
The  power   of   France   was  all   the  more   dangerous 
that  it  was  entirely  concentrated  in    the  hands  of  a 
single    man,    and    that    man    the    King ;     while    the 
direction  which  French  policy  was  likely  to  take  had 
been  significantly  pointed  out   by  the  revocation,  in 
1685,  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.     The  great  obstacle  to 
the  success  of  that  policy  was  no  other  than  William 
himself,  the  new  King  of  England,  the  soul  of  the 
Protestant  league,  who  had  consecrated  his  life  to  the 
task  of  opposing  the  ambition  of  France  ;  for  he  well 
knew  that  to  that  ambition  his  beloved  native  land  was 
destined  to  fall  the  next  victim.      It  is  probable  that, 
if  there  was  one  man  in  Europe  whom  Louis  dreaded, 
and  one  man  whom  more  than  all  others  he  hated,  it 
was  William  of  Orange.     We  may  easily  understand, 
then,  how  gladly  he  welcomed  the  exiled  Stuart,  how 
warmly  he  espoused  his  cause,  which  was  the  cause  of 
Catholicism,  Divine  Right,  and  Kingship,  against  that 
of  Protestantism,  rebellion,  and   unconcealed  rivalry. 
To    William    and    to   Louis   alike,    it    may    shrewdly 
be  euessed,  the  Revolution   in   England    was    but  a 
move — important  (no  doubt),  but  only  a  move — in  the 
great  game  which  they  were  playing.     To   William 
it  meant  an   ally  of  unknown  strength  :   for  England 
had  almost  ceased,  since  Cromwell's  death,  to  count 
in  European  politics.     To  Louis  it  meant  a  priceless 
weapon  in  his  diplomatic  armour)-. 


FRANCE   AND   IRELAND  6l 

The  first  fruits  of  Louis'  friendship  for  James  were. 
of  course,  the  descent  on   Ireland.     In   that  country 
there    were,    alas !    the    familiar    causes     of    unrest, 
perhaps  in    more  than  usual  intensity.     The  terrible 
measures  of  Cromwell  had   left  abiding   memories  of 
bitter  hostility  to  the  Protestant  cause.     The  corrupt 
and  muddled  policy  of  the  Restoration  had  but  added 
fuel   to  the  discontent ;    for    it  had   been  found    im- 
possible to  dispossess  the  Cromwellian  settlers,    and 
the  wretched  country  had  been  again  pillaged  for  the 
benefit  of  the  returned  Royalists.     The  rigid   policy 
of  Anglican  orthodoxy  had   set   the  seal  even   more 
firmly    than    before    on    the    Protestant    ascendency. 
The    commercial   and  agricultural    prosperity   of  the 
country   had    been    stifled    by    the    miserable    policy 
which,  in  travesty  of  the  provisions  of  the  Navigation 
Act,  had  first  forbidden  the  importation  into  England 
of  Irish  cattle  and  other  produce,  and  finally  excluded 
Ireland  from  the  benefit  of  the  colonial  trade.     It  is 
hardly    wonderful,    therefore,    that    there    was    little 
sympathy  in    Ireland  with    the  statesmen    who   had 
effected  the  Revolution,  while  there  was  much  sym- 
pathy with    James,  as  a  Catholic  who    had  suffered 
for  his  faith.     Moreover,  the  troubles  of  the  last  forty 
years  had  driven  many  Irishmen  into  the  service  of 
Louis,  James's  ally,  who  was  only  too  glad  of  such 
valuable  material  for  his  great  armies.    Consequently, 
the    Irish   Catholics   were    little    likely    to    object   to 
James,  on    the    ground    that    he    was    supported    by 
French  soldiers. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  Irish  campaign.     In  spite  of  the  heroic 


62         THE   LAST   OF    THE    OLD    ORDER 

resistance  of  the  Ulster  Protestants,  affairs  went 
badly  for  the  English  interests,  until  William  himself 
took  the  field.  The  evil  traditions  of  Charles  II.'s 
reign  had  made  the  army  organisation  a  mass  of  cor- 
ruption and  inefficiency.  James  declared  openly  for  a 
complete  Irish  policy.  Even  the  Restoration  settle- 
ment was  to  be  revised  :  and  the  hatreds  of  long 
years  were  gratified  by  a  sweeping  Act  of  Attainder. 
But  the  landing  of  William  in  the  summer  of  1690 
chanced  the  face  of  affairs.  The  brilliant  victory  of 
the  Boyne  once  more  shattered  the  hopes  of  James, 
who  fled  from  what  had  once  been  his  kingdom, 
never  to  return.  The  stubborn  resistance  of  isolated 
strongholds  terminated  with  the  fall  of  Limerick  in 
the  following  year  ;  and,  in  1692,  the  complete  victory 
of  Russell  over  the  French  fleet  off  La  Hogue  wiped 
out  the  disgrace  of  the  defeat  at  Beachy  Head,  and 
for  the  time  dispersed  all  fears  of  a  French  invasion. 

Whether  this  rapid  relief  from  its  most  anxious 
fears  was  in  truth  the  best  thing  for  the  nation  may, 
however,  be  a  grave  question.  So  long  as  the 
country  was  actually  threatened  by  a  hostile  force, 
statesmen  of  all  parties  were,  in  a  manner,  bound  to 
stand  by  one  another  and  the  new  King.  Even 
those  who,  in  their  hearts,  hankered  after  the  return 
of  James,  could  hardly  have  wished  to  see  him 
return  at  the  head  of  a  victorious  invading  army. 
And  it  was  certain  that  nothing  else  would  cause 
William  to  yield.  Indifferent  to  his  new  acquisition 
as  he  (somewhat  too  openly,  it  may  be  thought) 
professed  himself  to  be,  he  had  the  soldier's  instinct 
strong    in   him.     But,   with    the  rolling  away  of  that 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &  Cocherell. 

WILLIAM    III.    (165O-I7OJI. 

Portrait  by  Jan  Wyck,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallei  y. 


^4         THE    LAST   OF   THE    OLD   ORDER 

danger  from  without,  came  others,  much  more  subtle 
and  dangerous,  from  within. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  why  these  dangers  arose. 
For,  all  unknown  to  themselves,  the  men  of  the 
Revolution  had  destroyed,  at  least  for  a  time,  an 
impalpable  but  important  factor  in  the  working  of 
English  politics.  William  of  Orange  was  incom- 
parably the  ablest  ruler  who  had  worn  the  Crown  of 
England  since  the  death  of  Elizabeth.  He  was,  more- 
over, in  spite  of  his  somewhat  repellent  manners,  a 
thoroughly  upright,  God-fearing,  and  even  kind- 
hearted  man.  If  his  domestic  morals  were  not  so 
free  from  reproach  as  those  of  Charles  I.,  they  certainly 
had  nothing  to  fear  from'  a  comparison  with  those  of 
James  I.  and  his  two  grandsons  ;  and  as  certainly 
few  of  the  English  nobility  of  his  day  could  afford  to 
point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  him  on  that  account. 
His  personal  bravery  none  could  dispute.  The 
blood  royal  of  England  ran  in  his  veins  ;  while  his 
wife,  who  shared  his  throne,  was  actually  the 
daughter  of  the  deposed  King.  And  yet,  in  spite 
of  all  this,  he  failed  to  win  that  feeling  of  personal 
loyalty  which,  as  England  was  governed  then,  was 
essential  to  the  smooth  working  of  government.  It 
may  seem  almost  monstrous,  that  the  men  who 
would  have  accepted  as  unquestioned  gospel  the 
silliest  remark  of  James  I.,  or  the  most  extravagant 
pretensions  of  his  son,  should  have  cavilled  at  the 
reasonable  wishes  of  William  ;  but  such  undoubtedly 
was  the  fact.  For  good  or  for  evil,  the  mystery  of 
romance  which  for  centuries  had  hung  around  the 
throne,  and  sanctified  the  person  of  the  monarch,  was 


CHOICE    OF  MINISTERS  6$ 

gone  ;  and  with  it  one  of  the  most  powerful  agencies 
of  government.  It  is  idle  to  point  out,  that  the 
theory  of  Divine  Right,  which  supported  James  and 
opposed  William,  implied  a  divine  sanction,  not 
merely  for  the  rights  of  a  particular  family,  but  for 
the  feudal  rules  of  descent  which  vested  the  rights  of 
that  family  in  a  particular  person.  Such  arguments 
of  logic  are  powerless  against  the  elusive  working  of 
the  imagination  ;  and  imagination,  as  every  practical 
statesman  knows,  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors 
in  politics,  if  not  the  most  powerful.  The  Restora- 
tion which  seated  Charles  II.  on  the  throne  had  been 
enormously  popular,  because  it  had  appealed  to  the 
national  imagination  ;  the  Revolution  aroused  little 
enthusiasm,  because  it  appealed  only  to  the  national 
reason. 

This  is  really  the  key  to  the  domestic  troubles 
which  broke  out  immediately  after  the  coronation  of 
William  and  Mary,  and  lasted,  with  little  intermission, 
until  William  was  laid  in  his  grave.  The  King- 
though  his  heart  was,  doubtless,  in  his  great  foreign 
schemes,  set  out  with  an  earnest  desire  to  do  his 
duty  by  his  new  subjects.  His  first  Ministers  were 
chosen  with  rigid  impartiality  from  all  possible 
shades  of  political  opinion.  Nottingham's  open 
advocacy  of  the  Regency  scheme  did  not  bar  his 
way  to  office  ;  he  was  made  Secretary  of  State,  with 
Shrewsbury,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the 
young  nobility,  as  his  colleague.  Danby's  bad  record 
did  not  prevent  him  obtaining  that  recognition  of 
his  political  importance  to  which  his  representative 
position   entitled    him.     He  was   made   President   of 

6 


66  THE    LAST    OF   THE    OLD    ORDER 

the   Council.      To   Halifax    William    owed,  perhaps 
mure  than  to  any  other  man,  his  triumphant  position; 
but  Halifax  had   to  be  content   with  the  minor  office 
of  Privy    Seal.     The  great   office   of  Chancellor  was 
refused  both  by  Nottingham  and  by  I  lalifax,  who  had 
the  sense  to  admit  that  their  professional  knowledge 
was  not  equal   to   the   task.      It  was   accordingly  put 
into   Commission  ;   and    three    lawyers    of   eminence 
(the  first  of  them  Serjeant  Maynard)  were  appointed 
to  execute  it.     A  similar  course  was  followed  with  the 
Treasury  and  the  Admiralty  ;  but  the  commissioner- 
ships  were  exclusively  filled  by  well-known  English- 
men.    Even  the  places   in   the   Household,  with   one 
single  exception,  were  given   to  Englishmen,  though 
William   might  well  have  claimed  thai  his  domestic 
officials    should    be    his    own    countrymen.      In    the 
Privy  Council    Bentinck   was  the  only  foreigner   who 
obtained   a   place.      In    the    appointment    of  judges, 
William    went   far  beyond  anything  that  an   English 
monarch  had   previously  yielded  to   popular  feeling, 
by  placing  the  selection  entirely  in  the  hands   of  the 
Privy  Council  ;   and   the  honourable  example   which 
he  set  had  the  happiest  consequences.     None  of  the 
misdeeds   of  the  Stuarts  had   been   more  fatal  to  the 
cause  of  liberty  than  their  treatment  of  the  law  courts. 
From   the   accession  of  William   and  Mary  dates  the 
proud  and  almost  unbroken  record   of  integrity  and 
dignity  on  the   English  judicial  bench.      Finally,  the 
abilities  and  the  character  of  Somers  secured  for  him, 
in  spite  of  his  youth,  the  important  office  of  Solicitor- 
General. 

The  King's  treatment  of  his  enemies  was  as  lenient 


LENIENCY    OF    WILLIAM  6 J 

as  his  choice  of  Ministers  was  constitutional.     Several 
of  the   Bishops,  and   many  of  the  clergy,   refused  to 
take  the  oath   of  allegiance,  even   though  that  oath 
had   been   recast    in    such    a    way   as  to  make    the 
smallest   possible   demand   upon   tender  consciences. 
It   will   hardly  be  contended  that  it  was  beyond  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  prescribe  such  an  oath  to  men 
in   the    position   of   the    Bishops,   who,   as    peers    of 
Parliament,  were  personally  called  upon  to  take  part 
in  the  councils  of   the    State.     Yet    there    is  some 
evidence  that  William  offered  to  use  his  influence  to 
induce  Parliament  to  dispense  even  with  the  oath,  in 
the  case  of  prelates  who  were  willing  to  exercise  their 
public  spiritual  functions  in  a  peaceful  way.     Even 
when    this    generous    offer    was    rejected,  the   King 
steadily  maintained  an  attitude  of   forbearance,  and 
sternly  refused  to  allow  the  extremer  Whigs  to  resort 
to  drastic  measures.     He  could  not,   in   the  face  of 
the  recent  Act   of  Parliament,  treat  the   non-juring 
prelates  as   bishops  ;    but   for  two  years  he  allowed 
them  to  remain  in  their  palaces,  and  declined  to  fill 
their  vacant  sees.     It  is  more  than  probable  that,  but 
for  the  express  words  of  the  statute,  he  would  have 
allowed  the  non-juring  parish  clergy  to  retain  their 
livings,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  policy  of  exact- 
ing the  oaths  of  allegiance  as  a  condition  of  holding 
ecclesiastical    office   was    at    least    eighty  years    old. 
No    personal     proceedings    were    taken    against    the 
ejected    clergy,    even    though    many    of   them    were 
strongly  suspected  of  corresponding  with  James,  and 
though    they    certainly     consorted     with     notorious 
Jacobites.       Nor    was   William's    lenity    confined    to 


68  THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD    ORDER 

the  clergy.  He  had  not  been  a  year  on  the  throne, 
when  treason  of  the  most  unquestionable  kind  was 
brought  home  to  Clarendon,  Dartmouth,  Preston, 
the  Bishop  of  Ely  (Turner),  Ashton,  and  Elliott. 
Preston  and  Ashton,  who  were  taken  in  the  very  act 
of  carrying  treasonable  despatches  to  France,  were, 
after  trials  of  scrupulous  fairness,  condemned  to 
death ;  and  Ashton  was  executed.  Preston  turned 
King's  evidence,  and  may,  therefore,  be  said  to  have 
bought  his  life  rather  than  owed  it  to  William's  for- 
giveness. But  Clarendon  was  pardoned,  Dartmouth 
would,  probably,  have  received  the  same  indulgence 
if  he  had  not  died  in  prison,  Turner  was  allowed 
to  escape  before  apprehension,  Elliott  was  never 
brought  to  trial.  No  general  proscription  was  set  on 
foot,  though  the  plot  was  known  to  be  of  wide 
extent  ;  and,  from  first  to  last,  in  spite  of  the 
grossest  provocation,  William  never  allowed  himself 
to  be  betrayed  into  vindictiveness  against  his 
enemies. 

But  no  sense  of  gratitude  or  shame  restrained  the 
quarrels  and  turbulence  of  Ministers,  Parliament,  or 
clergy.  The  vivid  pages  of  Macaulay  reproduce  for 
us  some  of  the  choicest  examples  of  clerical 
indecency  which  his  unrivalled  knowledge  of  the 
literature  of  the  time  discovered.  The  insults  heaped 
on  William's  new  Primate,  Tillotson,  a  man  of  pure, 
almost  saintly  life,  were  so  gross,  that  they  speedily 
drove  the  Archbishop  into  his  grave.  The  non-juring 
Primate,  Sancroft,  behaved  with  the  peevishness  of 
a  spoilt  child  ;  and  did  his  best  to  render  the  work 
of  the  Church  impossible.     The  smaller  members  of 


TURBULENCE   OF   OFFICIALS  69 

the  faction  lost  no  opportunity  of  heaping  insult  upon 
their  indulgent  monarch.  Some  even  travestied  the 
sacred  offices  of  the  Church  in  their  desire  to  gratify 
their  spleen.  The  most  odious  feature  of  this 
conduct  was  the  fact  that  it  was  often  shared  by  men 
who  had  not  sufficient  courage  to  refuse  the  oaths, 
and  who  were  thus  guilty  of  a  double  perjury.  For 
the  four  hundred  resolute  Jacobites  who  gave  up 
their  livings  at  the  call  of  what  they  believed  to  be 
their  duty,  we  can  have  but  respect,  even  though 
we  may  deem  them  mistaken.  But  for  the  cowards 
whose  consciences  merely  impelled  them  to  plot 
against  and  slander  the  King  whose  sworn  subjects 
they  were,  there  can   be   nothing  but   contempt. 

The  officials  of  the  State  were  no  whit  behind  the 
officials  of  the  Church.  Danby,  though  he  seems  to 
have  been  faithful  to  the  Revolution  settlement, 
stained  the  high  office  which  he  held  by  the  grossest 
and  most  shameless  corruption.  Nottingham  and 
Shrewsbury,  the  two  Secretaries  of  State,  made 
William's  life  a  burden  to  him  by  their  constant 
quarrels  ;  and  Shrewsbury,  in  mere  pique  at  what  he 
believed  to  be  disregard  of  his  advice,  allowed  him- 
self, whilst  actually  holding  the  seals  of  office,  to  be 
drawn  into  a  treasonable  correspondence  with  James. 
Mordaunt  and  Delamere,  Whigs  as  they  both  were, 
could  not  work  together  at  the  Treasury  Board, 
except  when  they  were  attacking  Godolphin  ;  and 
Godolphin,  though  he  was  entrusted  with  the  most 
vital  secrets  of  State,  was  justly  suspected  of  treason. 
Marlborough,  who  was  loaded  with  honour  by 
William,  not  only  did   his  best  to  create  an  irrecon- 


/O  Tin    r  ist  of  T/i/-:  OLD  ORDER 

cilable  feud  between  the  King  and  the  Princess  Anne, 
the  next  heir  to  the  throne,  but  actually  betrayed 
military  secrets  to  James.  Russell,  the  responsible 
head  of  the  naval  administration,  not  content  with 
the  immense  emoluments  of  his  office,  and  the  lavish 
bounty  which  had  bestowed  on  him  a  pension  of 
.£3,000  a  year,  long  hesitated  on  the  brink  of  treason  ; 
and,  when  he  finally  decided  against  the  risk,  solaced 
his  impeccable  virtue  with  a  series  of  fractious 
complaints  and  quarrels,  which  did  much  to  destroy 
the   results   of  the   splendid   victory  of  La    Hogue. 

But  surely,  if  the  clergy  were  insolent  and  Ministers 
unfaithful,  William  might  expect  support  and  con- 
fidence from  that  Parliament  which  had  bestowed 
upon  him  the  Crown,  and  whose  care  for  the 
liberty  of  the  subject  he  had  honestly  and  cheer- 
fully recognised  ?  Unhappily,  neither  Peers  nor 
Commons  seem  to  have  had  any  appreciation  of  the 
gravity  of  the  situation.  The  Whigs  were  bent  on 
persecuting  the  Tories  ;  the  Tories  were  bent  on 
denouncing  the  Whigs.  It  proved  actually  im- 
possible to  turn  the  Declaration  of  Right  into  a 
statute  during  the  first  session  of  the  Convention. 
Godolphin  moved  to  insert  a  new  clause  reserving 
the  hereditary  rights  of  the  Protestant  members  of 
James's  family  ;  and,  when  the  Commons  refused  to 
agree,  the  Lords  maintained  the  proposal,  and  the 
Pill  was  lost  for  the  session.  Thus  the  very  funda- 
mentals of  the  Revolution  were  imperilled.  Although, 
in  the  first  fervour  of  their  gratitude,  the  Commons 
voted  supplies  for  a  war  against  France,  the}'  refused 
to  pass  the  Abjuration  Bill  and  the  Bill  for  a  General 


Photo  by]  {Walker  &  Cockerell. 

THE   GREAT   DUKE    OF    MARLBOROUGH    (1650-I722). 

Portrait  by  Closterman,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


/2  THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD    O&DER 

Pardon,  in  spite  of  continual  reminders  by  the  King 
of  the  urgent  necessity  for  the  healing  of  old  sores. 
They  were  perhaps  right,  though  their  motives  were 
suspicious,  in  refusing  to  accord  a  formal  sanction 
to  the  new  practice  of  publishing  the  Votes  of  the 
House  ;  but  they  were  clearly  wrong  in  quarrelling 
with  the  law  courts  for  venturing  to  question  the 
validity  of  their  orders  in  matters  affecting  the  liberty 
of  the  subject,  and  the}'  were  fractiously  unreasonable 
in  compelling  William  to  allow  inspection  of  the 
records  of  the  Privy  Council.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1690  William,  in  despair,  dissolved  the 
Houses;  but  the  step  only  added  to  the  dangers  of 
the  time.  For  the  new  House  of  Commons,  which 
met  on  March  20th,  contained  a  strong  Tory 
majority  ;  and  it  became  an  open  question  whether 
the   Revolution   settlement   could  stand. 

In  his  despair,  the  King  determined  on  two  steps. 
One  of  them  will  seem  to  us  the  most  natural  in  the 
world,  and,  perhaps,  was  not  very  distasteful  to 
William  ;  the  other  can  only  be  justified  by  extreme 
public  danger,  and  William  loathed  it  from  his 
soul. 

When  it  became  clear  that  the  new  Parliament 
would  be  strongly  Tory,  the  King  determined  to 
conciliate  it  by  getting  rid  of  his  Whig  Ministers. 
Halifax  retired,  probably  at  his  own  wish  ;  and 
Danby,  a  strong  Tory,  became  the  most  powerful 
official  of  the  State.  Mordaunt  and  Delamere  were 
ejected  from  the  Treasury  ;  and  Sir  John  Lowther, 
a  great  Tory  squire,  became  First  Lord,  and  osten- 
sible   representative   of  the   Court    in    the    House  of 


POWER   OF    THE   COMMONS  73 

Commons.  For  some  reason,  never  decisively  ex- 
plained, Godolphin,  Tory  as  he  was,  also  quitted  the 
Treasury  ;  but  the  Whig  Torrington  was  replaced  as 
First  Commissioner  of  the  Admiralty  by  the  Tory 
Pembroke,  and  Wharton  and  Sacheverel  resigned 
from  the  Board.  It  has  been  hinted  that,  in  making 
these  changes,  William  did  no  particular  violence  to  his 
feelings.  Though  he  may  be  said  to  have  owed  his 
Crown  to  the  Whigs,  though  he  was  constantly  loyal 
to  Revolution  principles,  he  was,  in  all  probability,  no 
more  of  a  Whig  than  any  other  ruler  of  his  day  ;  and 
he  probably  preferred  the  Tory  creed,  if  he  could  win 
the  friendship  of  those  who  professed  it.  There  lay 
the  rub.  Could  William  secure  the  loyalty  of  the 
Tories,  merely   by  giving  office  to   their  leaders  ? 

Apparently,  William  thought  not.  For  there  was 
grave  doubt  whether  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party 
would  swallow  the  change  of  policy,  whether  they 
would  not  rather  take  the  opportunity  of  their 
victory  at  the  polls  to  act  according  to  their  genuine 
feelings.  It  could  not  escape  a  man  of  William's 
penetration  that,  in  the  House  of  Commons 
especially,  there  lay  a  grave  danger  of  revolt.  The 
House  had  been  gradually  learning  its  strength.  It 
could  not  but  feel  that  it  had  made  the  Revolution, 
that  its  conduct  in  the  last  few  months  had  put  the 
King  to  the  extreme  hazard  of  a  dissolution,  that  in 
the  power  of  the  purse  it  held  a  terrible  weapon  over 
the  head  of  a  ruler  to  whom  his  Crown  was  valuable 
chiefly  because  it  promised  him  the  chance  of 
carrying  out  his  great  Continental  schemes,  the  first 
necessity  of  which   was    a    liberal   supply    of  funds. 


74      Thm  last  of  The  old  order 

With  a  hostile  I  louse  of  Commons,  the  dream  of 
William's  life  must  have  for  ever  remained 
unfulfilled. 

And  so  the  King  resolved  to  obtain  by  corruption 
what  he  could  not  hope  to  win  by  honest  persuasion. 
In  Danby,  now,  as  has  been  said,  his  chief  Minister, 
he  found  a  tool  ready  to  his  hand.  The  man  who  had 
acted  as  go-between  in  the  scandalous  treaty  of  [678, 
by  which  Charles  II.  had  sold  his  country  and  his 
allies  to  the  French,  who  had  accumulated  in  a  few 
years  of  office  a  fortune  sufficient  for  the  support  of  a 
dukedom,1  was  not  likely  to  scruple  at  the  purchase 
of  votes  in  the  House  of  Commons.  But  it  was 
necessary  that  the  delicate  negotiations  of  the 
briber}'  market  should  be  actually  carried  out  by  an 
agent  in  the  House  itself;  and  Danby  was.  of  course, 
a  peer.  He  selected  as  his  mouthpiece  for  the 
purpose  one  of  those  unscrupulous  men  of  whom  a 
few  have  in  every  age  disgraced  the  honourable 
profession  of  the  law.  Sir  John  Trevor,  member  for 
Yarmouth  (Hants)  in  the  new  Parliament,  had  owed 
his  start  in  life  to  the  kindness  of  a  relation,  who  had 
a  respectable  practice  at  the  bar,  and  who  allowed 
his  needy  kinsman  the  run  of  his  chambers.  Such 
an  opening  was  all  that  was  required  by  the  acute 
and  unscrupulous  youth.  With  the  keen  instinct  of 
the  carrion  crow,  he  had  specialised  in  gambling, 
and  soon  became  such  a  proficient  in  the  law  relating 
to  that  dubious  calling,  that  his  opinion  was  eagerly 
sought  by    disputants    in    the   many  quarrels    which 

1  Danby  \sa>  made  Marquis  oi  Caermarthen  in  [689,  and  Duke 
of  Leeds  in  1694. 


77//'   RESORT   TO  CORRUPTION  75 

arose  in  connection  with  it.  His  shining  merits  had 
naturally  attracted  the  notice  of  Jeffreys,  then  rapidly 
rising  into  office  as  the  unscrupulous  tool  of  Charles 
and  James.  Trevor  became  a  bosom  friend  of  the 
Chancellor,  whom  in  vigour  of  vituperative  epithet 
and  capacity  for  drinking  he  was  said  soon  to  equal, 
if  not  to  surpass.  Needless  to  say,  no  scruple  of 
conscience  prevented  him  setting  up  as  a  rival  of  his 
distinguished  patron  ;  and  it  was  the  opinion  of 
many  shrewd  observers  that,  if  James's  reign  had 
lasted  but  a  year  or  so  longer,  he  would  have  ousted 
that  patron  from  the  woolsack.  As  it  was,  he  had 
become  a  King's  Counsel,  then  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
finally,  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the 
Parliament  of  James.  Though,  naturally,  somewhat 
under  a  cloud  in  the  Convention  Parliament,  in  which 
he  appears  to  have  gained  a  seat  only  by  the 
generosity  of  Maynard,  he  had  had  the  courage, 
in  company  with  another  notorious  hireling,  Sir 
William  Williams,  to  defend  the  practice  of  bribery 
at  elections.  He  was,  therefore,  perfectly  fitted,  by 
experience  and  reputation,  to  essay  the  unsavoury 
task  of  corrupting  his  fellow-members  ;  and,  that  he 
might  be  able  to  do  his  work  the  more  efficiently, 
Lowther  was  instructed,  as  representative  of  the 
Government  in  the  House,  to  propose  his  re-election 
as  Speaker.  It  is  no  credit  to  the  House  that,  even 
with  such  a  recommendation,  it  elected  Trevor 
without  a  protest,  and  thus  delivered  itself  over  to  an 
influence  which  many  of  the  members  must  have 
known  was  of  the  most  degraded  kind.  Determined 
not  to  do  things  by  halves,  Danby,  two  months  later, 


76         THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD   ORDER 

procured  tin*  substitution  of  Trevor  for  Maynard  in 

the  post  of  First  Commissioner  of  the  Great  Seal  ; 
and,  in  1692,  on  the  death  of  Powell,  Trevor  was 
reappointed  to  his  old  office  of  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
thus  filling  the  two  inconsistent  positions  of  superior 
and  subordinate  judge  in  the  Court  of  Chancery. 

If  William  had  not  shrunk  from  the  hard  necessity 
of  stooping  to  measures  which  he  loathed  from  the 
bottom  of  his  soul,  he  had  at  least  the  satisfaction  of 
finding  that  the  desperate  remedy  had  been  effectual. 
The  opposition  to  the  Government  ceased  as  if  by 
nlagic.  The  King's  regular  revenue  was  settled  upon 
terms  which,  though  they  did  not  in  all  respects 
please  him,  he  was  fain  to  admit  were  generous. 
The  hereditary  revenues  of  the  Crown  were  declared 
to  belong  to  him  and  Mary  as  of  right.  The  moiety 
of  the  Excise  which,  at  the  Restoration,  had  been 
settled  on  Charles  II.  as  a  compensation  for  the  loss 
of  the  feudal  dues,  was  continued  to  William  and 
Man'  for  their  joint  lives  and  the  life  of  the  survivor. 
The  Customs  duties  were  only  granted  for  a  term  of 
four  years,  on  the  plea  that  a  grant  for  a  fixed  period 
afforded  a  better  security  to  the  Government  creditors 
than  a  grant  for  lives  which  might  drop  at  any 
moment.  William,  not  unnaturally,  complained  that 
it  was  hard  that  he  should  be  less  trusted  than  James, 
who  had  the  Customs  for  life  ;  but  was  soothed  by 
the  representation  that  it  was  not  he,  but  his 
successors,  whom  the  Commons  did  not  trust.  A 
sum  of  ,£1,200,000  was  voted  for  the  immediate 
necessities  of  war  in  Ireland  and  against  France. 
After   some   little  jangling  about  words,   a   Bill   was 


CAMPAIGN   IN  IRELAND  7/ 

passed    to  confirm   all   the  proceedings  of  the  Con- 
vention Parliament,  and  to  remove  any  doubts  which 
might  exist  about  the  legality  of  its  existence.     Part 
of  the  bargain  with  the  Tories  had  been  a  new  Com- 
mission   of    Lieutenancy    for    the    City    of   London, 
formerly  the  great  stronghold  of  the  Whigs  ;   and  the 
Commission    received    the   formal    approval    of    the 
House,  which  refused  even  to  admit  the  sheriffs,  who 
came  with  a  petition  against  it.     It  is  true  that  the 
Abjuration  Bill,  after  being  read  a  second  time,  fell 
on   the  motion  to  go    into    Committee  ;   but  the  re- 
presentatives of  the  Government  did  not  press    the 
measure,  and  it    is    more  than    doubtful   if  William 
really  wished  it   to   pass.     Finally   the   Pardon    Bill, 
which     William    did    undoubtedly     desire,    at     last 
came  through  the   Houses  ;  and  the  King  was  able 
to  set  out  for  Ireland  with  a  reasonable  hope  that 
England     would      remain     undisturbed    during    his 
absence.     Before    departing,    however,  he    prudently 
prorogued    the     Parliament.     He    also    appointed    a 
Council    of   Nine    to    assist    the    Queen,    who,   by   a 
special  Act  of  Parliament,  had  been  named  Regent 
during  his  absence.     But  the  fact  that,  in  this  Council, 
the  great   political   parties   were    almost   equally  re- 
presented, seems  to  show  that  the  modern  conception 
of    Cabinet    Government   was,   despite    the   success 
of  the  new    expedient,  as   far    from   William's  mind 
as  ever. 

For  some  time,  however,  the  effects  of  the 
experiment  continued  to  be  felt.  The  brilliant 
success  of  William's  campaign  in  Ireland  counter- 
acted    the    depression     produced    by   the   defeat  of 


78  THE    LAST    OF    THE    OLD    ORDER 

Torrington  at  Beachy  Head.  On  his  return  to 
England,  the  King  found  himself,  for  the  first  time, 
really  popular.  The  autumn  session  of  1690  was 
a  halcyon  period  of  calm.  The  legislative  product 
of  the  period  consisted  of  fifteen  statutes.  No  less 
than  five  of  these  were  Money  Acts,  granting  in  all 
a  sum  of  £5,000,000  (an  enormous  sum  in  those  days) 
towards  the  royal  necessities.  Of  the  remaining  ten, 
half  were  measures  of  a  distinctly  "government" 
character,  such  as  the  two  Acts  for  prohibiting  trade 
with  France,  the  Militia  Act,  the  Mutiny  Act,  and 
the  Act  passed,  in  view  of  Torrington's  approaching 
trial,  for  strengthening  the  position  of  the  Admiralty 
Board.  One  very  significant  and  important  measure, 
it  is  true,  appeared  to  show  some  distrust  of  the 
Administration.  This  was  the  Act  which  appointed 
a  body  of  Parliamentary  Commissioners  to  inspect 
the  Government  accounts.  Unhappily,  no  record  of 
the  debates  on  this  measure  survives  ;  and  we  are, 
therefore,  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  discover  the  motives 
which  prompted  it.1  But  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  Houses  were  actuated  by  anything  more 
than  ordinary  prudence  in  requiring  an  account  of 
such  a  vast  expenditure  as  they  had  authorised  ;  and 
there  is  no  evidence  that  William  was  at  all  offended 
by  the  measure,  as  Charles  II.  had  been  on  a 
similar  occasion.  Encouraged,  on  the  other  hand, 
by  the  new  spirit  of  friendliness,  the  King  determined 
to  continue  his  new  policy,  by  calling  Godolphin  to 
the  position  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  Lowther 

'   It  is  even  possible  that  the  measure  was  introduced   by  Lowther 

himself. 


GOVERNMENT   EXPENDITURE  /Q 

being  provided  for  elsewhere.  Inasmuch  as  Shrews- 
bury had  resigned  the  Secretaryship  of  State  earlier 
in  the  year,  the  new  appointment  meant  a  gain  of 
two  places  to  the  Tories.  But,  once  more,  we  must  be 
careful  not  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  move;  for 
Shrewsbury's  place  was,  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
filled  by  the  appointment  of  Sidney.  And  Sidney, 
if  he  had  any  political  feeling'  at  all,  was  a 
Whig. 

Again,  however,  in  the  session  of  1691,  the  old 
spirit  began  to  reappear.  The  cost  of  the  French 
war  was  growing  with  frightful  rapidity  ;  the  results 
hardly  seemed  equal  to  the  charge.  The  war  in 
Ireland  was  at  an  end ;  but  the  demands  on  the 
country's  purse  were  as  heavy  as  ever.  The  un- 
official Tory  members  began  to  realise  that  they  were 
being  sold  by  their  leaders,  and  that  the  plausible 
speeches  in  support  of  Lowther's  proposals  came 
from  men  who  had  received  places  and  pensions  at 
Trevor's  suggestion.  The  Report  of  the  Commis- 
sioners of  Accounts  appointed  in  the  previous  year 
contained  startling  items.  Unhappily,  it  has  not 
come  down  to  us  in  its  original  form  ;  but  we  know 
that  it  led  to  plain  speaking.  The  House  demanded 
details  of  the  vast  sums  allotted  to  "secret  services." 
It  was  told  that  the  only  person  capable  of  giving 
the  information  was  Jephson,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  that  he  was  just  dead.  The  Com- 
missioners were  fain  to  confess  that  no  regular 
accounts  had  been  drawn  up  by  the  Exchequer  for 
thirty  years  past ;  the  Treasury  officials  made  the  lame 
excuse  that  their  neglect  was  due  to  an  unwillingness 


80  THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD    ORDER 

to  give  the  bankers,  whom  Charles  II.  had  cheated, 
a  legal  claim  against  the  State,  by  admitting  liability 
in  an  official  document.  The  practice  of  exacting 
percentages  by  way  of  fees  in  the  public  offices  had 
grown  up  in  the  last  few  years,  and  the  sudden 
increase  in  the  expenditure  had  enormously  increased 
the  incomes  of  the  officials.  Many  of  them  were 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  thus  had 
a  direct  interest  in  voting  the  taxes  on  which  they 
afterwards  received  a  percentage.  Sir  John  Lowther 
was  indignant  at  being  told  that  he  was  "  gagged  by 
offices";  and,  no  doubt,  to  a  man  of  his  wealth,  the 
mere  profits  of  his  official  posts  were  unimportant. 
But  it  was  perfectly  true  that,  since  he  had  been 
manager  for  the  Crown  in  the  House,  his  attitude  on 
political  questions  had  considerably  changed.  He 
even  ventured  to  question  the  right  of  the  House  to 
inquire  into  the  distribution  of  the  secret  service 
money.  The  House  waxed  indignant,  and  ordered 
the  Commissioners  to  make  a  full  return  of  salaries, 
pensions,  and  fees.  Alarmed  by  this  attitude,  and 
thinking  to  strengthen  their  hands,  the  Government 
induced  Sir  Edward  Seymour  to  join  the  Treasury 
Board.  But  the  only  result  was  to  destroy  Seymour's 
influence  in  the  House. 

The  hostility  to  the  war  and  the  system  of 
Ministerial  corruption  came  from  the  independent 
Tories.  But  the  Whigs  were  not  slow  to  see  a  chance 
of  recovering  their  lost  ground.  During  the  anxiety 
of  the  previous  year,  the  question  of  criminal  trials 
had  been  prominent.  Though  Preston  and  Ashton 
had  been  treated  with  scrupulous  fairness,  as  the  law 


CRIMINAL    PROSECUTIONS  8l 

then   stood,   it   was   felt   that   the   law   itself  required 
alteration.      Historically    speaking,  a   prosecution  for 
crime  was   a  mere  examination  by  royal   officials   of 
a   person   already  accused    by  the   testimony   of  his 
neighbours.     According  to  medieval  ideas,  there  was 
little  doubt   of  such   a  person's  guilt.     He   was   not 
entitled  to  the   privilege  of  a   defendant  in  a  private 
action.     No  copy  of  his  indictment  was  furnished  to 
him  ;  for  he  was  supposed  to  have  heard  the  accusation 
of  the  grand  jury.     He  was  entitled  to  "  challenge  "  or 
object    to    a   certain   number    of  the    petty   jury  by 
whom  he  was   to   be  tried  ;  but  he  could  not  demand 
to  know,  before  the  trial,   the   names   of  the  jurors, 
and  he  was  therefore  unable  to  make  an)'  previous 
inquiries  as  to  their  character.     He  was  not  entitled 
to  be  represented  by  counsel,  unless  a  point  of  law 
arose    upon    the    pleadings.     He    could    not   compel 
witnesses  to  undertake  the  dangerous  part  of  testify- 
ing against  the  Crown.      In   the  two  previous  reigns 
the  royal  officials   had  shamefully  abused  the  powers 
which  the  survival  of  these  ideas   had  placed  in  their 
hands.     The  trials  of  Stafford,  Algernon  Sidney,  and 
Lord    Russell    had    been     little    less    than    judicial 
murders  ;  and,  in  Sidney's  case,  even  the  wholesome 
rule  which  required  two  witnesses  to  prove  a  charge 
of    treason    had    been     scandalously    evaded.     The 
pleasantries    of     Scroggs      and     Jeffreys     on     such 
occasions    were    fresh   in    men's    memories;    and,    in 
spite  of  the  wholesome  purging  of  the  judicial  bench, 
the  demand  for  the  improved  tenure  of  the  judicial 
office  had  not    yet  been  granted.     The  Whigs  now 
brought  in  a  Bill  to  regulate   trials  for  treason  ;  and 

7 


82  THE    /  -is/    or    THE    OLD   ORDER 

the  measure  received  tin*  approval  of  the  indepen- 
dent Tories.  But  the  Ministerial  supporters  talked 
about  "embarrassing  the  Government";  and,  by 
playing  skilfully  on  the  susceptibilities  of  the  peers 
who  preferred  to  believe  that  their  special  privileges 
were  being  attacked,  very  nearly  produced  a  fatal 
quarrel  between  the  Houses.  Bills  were  introduce! 
to  regulate  salaries  and  reduce  the  fees  of  offices  ; 
but  the  Government  managed  to  procure  their 
rejection  in  the  Lords.  When,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1692,  a  further  demand  of  money  was  made 
on  behalf  of  the  Crown,  even  the  Tory  members 
suggested  that  highly  paid  officials  might  well  con- 
tribute a  handsome  subscription  out  of  their  salaries. 
Gradually  the  indignation  of  the  independent 
members  concentrated  itself  upon  the  support  of 
two  measures,  one  for  the  exclusion  from  the  House 
of  Commons  of  all  persons  holding  offices  or  pensions 
from  the  Crown  (usually  known  as  the  "  Place  Bill  "), 
the  other,  the  Triennial  Bill,  for  limiting  the  duration 
of  Parliament  to  three  years.  The  object  of  both 
measures  was,  of  course,  the  same  ;  for  a  member 
whose  seat  was  only  secure  for  three  years,  was, 
naturally,  less  valuable  as  a  supporter  of  the  Ministry 
than  one  wiiose  vote  could  be  reckoned  on  for  an 
unlimited  time.  The  debates  on  these  measures  were 
long  and  heated  ;  and  at  last  the  King,  in  his  despair 
at  the  fatal  illness  of  Mary,  accepted  the  Triennial 
Act,  though  he  resolutely  refused  to  give  his  consent 
to  the  Place  Bill. 

The    conduct,   both   of  the   Government    and    the 
Opposition,  at  this  crisis,  warns  us  that  we  must  still 


PARTIES   t\    COUNCIL  83 

look  upon  the  Cabinet  system  of  administration  as 
a  plan  which  had  not  yet  been  accepted  by  political 
leaders  of  the  day.  Had  Lowther  and  his  friends 
regarded  themselves  as  dependent  upon  the  support 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  they  must  have  resigned 
when  the  two  Bills  were  carried  in  the  teeth  of 
their  strongest  protests.  Had  the  Whigs  regarded 
themselves  as  the  exponents  of  such  a  system,  they 
would  never  have  urged  measures  which,  as  they  must 
have  seen,  would  have  been  fatal,  or  almost  fatal,  to 
its  success.  In  so  far  as  the  principle  upon  which 
such  system  must  be  based  was  understood  at  all, 
it  was  regarded  with  dislike  by  both  parties.  "  All 
debates  should  be  in  Council,  now  all  thincrs 
arc  huddled  up,"  said  Sir  John  Thompson,  the 
Tory  member  for  Gatton.  Howe,  who  was  then 
an  extreme  Whig,  if  not  a  Republican,  attributed 
the  rejection  of  the  Place  Jh'll  to  "parties  in 
Council." 

Nevertheless,  the  inexorable  logic  of  circumstances 
seemed  to  be  bringing  about  this  result.  The  Whigs 
stoutly  protested  that  their  measures  were  directed, 
not  against  the  King,  but  against  the  King's 
Ministers.  They  were,  really,  far  more  in  sympathy 
with  William's  personal  views  than  were  William's 
own  servants.  They  approved  of  the  French  war, 
on  which  William's  heart  was  set;  they  hated,  as  he 
did,  the  exclusive  pretensions  of  the  Established 
Church.  During  the  sessions  of  1693  and  1604  they 
had  coalesced  into  a  well-disciplined  force,  under 
leaders  of  great  ability — Somers,  who  was  made  Lord 
Keeper    in    1693,   Russell,  the   victor    of  La   Hogue 


84  THE    LASl    OF   THE    Ol  I >   ORbEK 

Wharton,  the   prince  of  wire-pullers,   Montagu,1   the 

founder  of  the  Hank  of  England,  whose  great 
financial  talents  had  given  him,  though  a  Whig,  a 
seat  at  the  Treasury  Board,  even  when  the  Tories  pre- 
dominated. In  the  following  year  came  the  exposure 
of  those  corrupt  practices,  the  existence  of  which  had 
so  long  been  suspected.  Danby,  now  Duke  of 
Leeds,  was  convicted  of  gross  corruption  over  the 
renewal  of  the  East  India  Company's  charter. 
Trevor,  the  organ  of  corruption  in  the  Lower  House, 
was  proved  to  have  received  a  bribe  of  a  thousand 
guineas  to  forward  a  private  Bill  promoted  by  the 
City  of  London— a  Bill,  moreover,  which  seems  to 
have  perpetrated  a  gross  injustice  at  the  expense  of 
helpless  poverty.  He  had  to  submit  to  the  unique 
disgrace  of  putting,  as  Speaker,  the  vote  for  his  own 
condemnation.  Further  inquiries  led  to  the  revela- 
tion of  a  wholesale  system  of  corruption.  Notting- 
ham, Sir  Thomas  Cooke,  and  Sir  Basil  Firebrace 
were  implicated  in  the  Last  India  scandals.  The 
management  of  the  army  was  equally  corrupt. 
Several  regimental  agents  were  committed  to  the 
Tower  for  embezzlement.  Colonel  Hastings  was 
cashiered.  Three  of  the  Hackney  Coach  Commis- 
sioners were  removed  for  corruption;  and  Henry 
(iu\-,  Jephson's  successor  in  the  perilous  post  of 
Secretary   to  the  Treasury,  was  sent  to   prison. 

1  On  the  extinction,  in  1700,  of  tin-  titles  <>f  the  Marquis  ol 
Halifax  (Savile),  William,  with  thoughtless  disregard  of  the  perplexities 
..I  the  future  student  'if  history,  created  Montagu  Baron  Halifax. 
The  new  baron  was  made  an  earl  in  17 14,  but  he  never  acquired  the 
title  of  Marquis. 


Photo  by] 


[Walker  &  Cockerell. 
CHARLES    MONTAGU    (HALIFAX)    (l66l-l/I5). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait  Guitar. 


86  '/•///■    /   tST   OF    THE    <>/./>   ORDER 

It  is  to  this  crisis,  if  we  are  to  accept  the  general 
view  of  historians,  and  to  the  advice  of  the  elder 
Sunderland,  that  we  owe  the  definite  adoption  of  the 
Cabinet  system  of  government.  The  claim  is  so 
startling,  and  so  inherently  improbable,  that  it  is 
worth  while  to  devote  a  little  time  to  t!ie  examina- 
tion of  it. 

In  the  first  place',  it  may  be  pointed  out  that,  of  all 
men  in  the  world,  Sunderland  appears  to  have  been 
the  least  likely  author  of  such  a  suggestion.  His 
political  career  proves  him  to  have  been  a  mere  office- 
seeker  of  the  most  unscrupulous  type.  He  made  his 
entry  into  politics  by  the  degrading  process  of  court- 
ing Charles's  mistresses.  His  special  patron  was  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth;  and,  when  her  influence 
did  not  succeed  in  procuring  for  him  the  honours  and 
rewards  which  he  deemed  to  be  justly  due  to  his 
merit,  he  had  no  hesitation  in  coquetting  with  the 
supporters  of  Monmouth,  and  even  furthered  the 
negotiations  with  the  Prince  of  Orange.  I  lis  zeal  for 
Protestantism  induced  him  to  vote  for  the  Exclusion 
Bill  ;  but,  in  the  reaction  which  followed  the  Popish 
Plot,  he  changed  completely  round,  and,  on  the  ac- 
cession of  James,  openly  declared  himself  a  Catholic, 
having"  first,  with  devilish  heartlessriess,  procured  the 
apostasy  of  his  eldest  son,  by  way  of  experiment, 
lie  was  darkly  suspected  of  having  ensured  the  doom 
of  Monmouth,  his  former  friend,  by  treachery  of  the 
most  fiendish  kind  ;  and  it  is  quite  certain  that  he 
accepted  bribes  from  the  French  King  to  betray  his 
country.  But  he  could  not  even  be  true  to  his  new 
masters.     While  he  was  actively  supporting  the  worst 


RETURN    OF  SUNDERLAND  8/ 

excesses  of  Popery  and  arbitral'}-  power,  he  was 
actually  engaged  once  more  in  correspondence  with 
William  ;  and,  in  order  to  shield  himself  from  sus- 
picion, he  did  not  scruple  to  prostitute  his  own  wife 
to  his  own  uncle,  then  British  Ambassador  at  the 
Hague.  Of  all  the  political  figures  of  the  age,  he  is 
the  most  treacherous,  the  most  hypocritical,  the  most 
scandalous,  the  most  utterly  despicable. 

And  yet  it  is  true  that,  before  the  year  1695,  Sun- 
derland had  returned  to  England  from  that  voluntary 
exile  which,  at  the  Revolution,  alone  saved  him  from 
the  just  vengeance  of  the  men  whom  he  had  duped 
and  betrayed.  Presuming  upon  William's  mildness 
of  temper,  he  had,  in  defiance  of  his  express  exclusion 
from  the  Act  of  Pardon,  slunk  back  into  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  even  into  the  palace.  It  is,  unhappily, 
true  that  William  condescended  to  listen  to  his 
advice  ;  and  it  may  be  true,  that  Sunderland  recom- 
mended to  the  King  to  admit  more  Whigs  into  office. 
But  for  such  advice  there  was  a  very  obvious  and 
personal  reason.  Sunderland  was  despised  and  dis- 
liked by  the  Whigs  ;  but  the  Whigs  did  not  thirst 
for  his  blood.  They  had  never  trusted  him  ;  and  his 
evil  conduct  in  James's  reign  had  but  strengthened 
their  cause.  Moreover,  he  had  rendered  powerful 
direct  services  to  William  at  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  and,  odious  as  these  services  were,  no  Whig 
could  deny  their  value.  But  by  the  Tories,  and,  still 
more  by  the  Jacobites,  Sunderland  was  loathed  and 
hated  ;  while  to  James  himself  he  was  that  most 
abhorred  of  all  creatures,  an  apostate  from  Romanism. 
His  life  would  not  have  been  worth  a  day's  purchase 


88         THE    LAST   OF    THE    OLD   ORDER 

if  a  turn  of  the  wheel  had  restored  the  Stuarts 
And  Sunderland  knew  enough  to  tear  that  a  Tory 
Ministry  might  cm\  in  the  recall  of  James. 

Moreover,  there  is  little  in  the  actual  events  of  the 
period   which  justifies  the   contention   that    it   marks 
the  inauguration  of  Cabinet  government.       A   mere 
enumeration  of  the  chief  official  changes  during  the 
years    1693-5    IS    enough    to    dispel    the    suggestion 
that  the    doctrine  of   Ministerial    responsibility    was 
accepted    by  the    King.     There  was  much  shuffling 
of    offices    in    the     spring    of     1693.       As    we     have 
said,   Trevor   was   rewarded    (or  his  unclean   services 
with    his    old    post    of    Master    of    the    Rolls,    then 
vacant    by    the    death    of    his    rival,    Powell.       Rus- 
sell    was    dismissed    from    the    Admiralty  ;  and    the 
Admiralty  Board,  when    reconstituted,    included   the 
unquestionably  Tory  names  of  Lowther,  Killegrew, 
Delaval,  and    Rich.     On    the    other   hand,   the   great 
Whig  leader,  Somers,  was  made  Lord  Keeper  at  the 
same  time  ;  and  the  Tory  Nottingham  was  replaced, 
as  Secretary  of  State,  by  the  Whig  Trenchard.      A 
similarly   impartial   redistribution   took    place   in   the 
following   year.      Russell    was,  it    is  true,   restored   to 
the  Admiralty;  and  Fox  and   Montagu,  both  strong 
Whigs,  received  places  at  the  Treasury  Hoard,  Mon- 
tagu  being,  soon  afterwards,  made  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.      Hut   the  Whig  proclivities   of  Montagu 
and    Fox   at   the  Treasury  were  more  than  counter- 
balanced by  the  presence  of  Godolphin,  who  did  not 
retire  till   1697  ;  and  even  the  scandalous  revelations 
of  1695   did    not  prevent  Danby  retaining  the  great 
office  of  Lord  President  of  the  Council.     In  truth,  as 


riiolo  &)•]  [Walker  &  Cockerel!. 

LORD   SOMERS   (1651-17161. 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gtilh  n . 


90  THE   LAST   (>/■■   THE    OLD   ORDER 

Burnet  puts  it,  "the  King  studied  only  to  balance 
them,  and  to  keep  up  among  the  Parties  a  jealousy 
of  one  another,  that  so  lie  might  oblige  them  all  to 
depend  more  entirely  on  himself." 

It  must,  in  fact,  be  admitted,  that  William  never 
did  become,  never  could  have  become,  a  constitu- 
tional ruler  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term.  It 
was  impossible  that  a  man  of  his  commanding  ability 
and  high  character  should  allow  himself  to  be  the 
mere  mouthpiece  of  men  whom,  for  the  most  part, 
he  must  have  both  despised  and  disliked.  He  might 
have  accepted  such  a  position  if  it  had  been  offered 
to  him  at  the  outset  ;  though  that  is  unlikely.  If  he 
had  accepted  it,  he  would  have  played  the  part  cor- 
rectly ;  for  faithfulness  to  his  engagements  was  one 
of  William's  strongest  qualities.  Hut,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  no  tradition  of  English  politics,  much  less 
any  formal  rule  of  the  Constitution,  prescribed  such  a 
course  to  the  monarch  whose  throne  William  assumed  : 
and  he  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  create  such 
a  situation.  His  ear  was  always  open  to  the  advice 
of  any  Englishman  whose  position  entitled  him  to 
give  advice  ;  but  he  reserved  to  himself  the  right  of 
decision.  Not  even  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament 
would  he  yield,  unless  his  judgment  concurred  with 
that  of  the  Houses.  In  his  view,  the  King  was  as 
much  an  essential  part  of  Parliament  as  the  Houses 
themselves — or  rather,  as  he  would,  perhaps,  himself 
have  put  it,  the  King  can  act  without  Parliament, 
but  Parliament  cannot  act  without  the  King.  And 
no  responsible  statesman  could  possibly  have  con- 
tended, in  those  days,  that  William's  view  was  wrong. 


ATTITUDE    OP    WILLIAM  91 

The  balance  of  power  in  the  Constitution,  after  long 
inclining  towards  the  Crown,  was  then  trembling  on 
the  needle ;  but  it  had  not  yet  dipped  decisively 
towards  Parliament.  The  event  which  was  definitely 
to  mark  the  change  was  the  death  of  William 
himself. 


IV 


SKIN'S    OK    CHANGE 


TlIE  tendency  to  exaggerate  the  antiquity  of  a 
favourite  institution  is  deeply  seated  in  human  nature. 
How  often  have  we  not  heard  of  the  Parliaments  of 
Henry  1 1.,  of  the  municipal  corporations  of  Domesday, 
of  the  universities  of  King  Alfred?  To  analyse  the 
causes  of  this  tendency  would  be  a  useful  task  ;  but 
this  is  not  the  place  for  the  exercise.  Here  we  must 
only  be  on  the  watch  to  prevent  the  distortion  of  the 
truth  by  a  similar  tendency. 

The  danger  is  the  greater  that,  as  we  have  al ready 
seen,  certain  important  elements  in  the  system  of  the 
future  had  shown  themselves  at  least  as  early  as 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.  But  the  point  is,  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  elements  which  are  merely 
important,  and  those  which  are  essential.  No  doubt 
it  is  important  to  the  working  of  the  Cabinet  System, 
that  the  Cabinet  should  be  composed  of  men  of  one 
way  of  thinking.  Rut  it  is  not.  essential.  Many  vast 
concerns  are  administered,  and  successfully  adminis- 
tered, by  committees  and  councils  in  which  there  are 

92 


Essentials  of  the  cabinet  system        93 

strong  differences  of  opinion.     It   is  only    necessary 
that   the  minority  shall,  in  each  case,  loyally  accept 
the  decision  of  the  majority.     No  doubt    it  is  very 
important  that  the  Ministry  of  the  day  should  be   in 
accord  with  the  sentiment  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
although,  as  a  fact,  that  principle  was  but  imperfectly 
grasped  before  the  time  of  William's  death.     But  it  is 
quite  conceivable,  and  has  sometimes  happened    in 
recent  years,  that  the  House  of  Commons  may  tolerate 
a    Ministry    of   which   it    does    not    really   approve, 
because  it  sees   no   chance   of  obtaining  a  better,  or 
because  it  does  not  wish  to  be  dissolved.     No  doubt, 
again,  it  is  important  to  the  smooth  working  of  the 
Cabinet  System,  that  the  King  should  not  be  present 
at  the  meetings  of  Ministers.     But  it  is  perfectly  pos- 
sible to  imagine  a  monarch  so  impartial,  so  tolerant, 
and,  it  may  be  added,  so  patient,  that  his  presence  at 
Cabinet  Councils  would  be  no  restraint  in  the  freedom 
of  discussion.     The  only  absolutely  essential  features 
of  the  Cabinet  System  are  (1)  that  the  Cabinet  should 
be  composed  mainly   (if  not   wholly)  of  the    actual 
occupants    of    great    political    offices ;    (2)  that    the 
supreme  conduct  of  the  national  administration  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  Cabinet.     Without  the  other 
features,  Cabinet  government  might  be  difficult,  but 
it  would  not  be  impossible.     Without  thesctwo  latter 
it  would  not  be  Cabinet  government. 

This  brief  analysis  will,  perhaps,  serve  to  show  the 
mistake  of  those  writers  who  date  the  commence- 
ment of  the  present  system  at  any  time  before  the 
death  of  William.  It  is  not  the  want  of  knowledge, 
but  the  lack  of  the  critical  faculty,  which  has  caused 


9  1  S/GNS   OF   CHANGE 

the  error.  Delighted  to  recognise  in  the  reign  of 
(  harles  II.  certain  of  the  obvious  features  of  the 
Cabinet  System,  they  have  not  stopped  to  consider 
whether  these  features  are  in  themselves  sufficient  to 
constitute  the  system.  Struck  by  the  similarity  of 
names,  they  have  not  asked  themselves  with  suffi- 
cient care  whether  these  names  represent  similar 
institutions.  The  word  "Cabinet,"  for  example,  is 
familiar  to  all  students  of  our  literature  from  the 
days  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  onwards.  Hut  at 
fust  it  means  almost  anything  except  that  which  we 
understand  by  the  term.  And  we  are  here  concerned 
with  things,  not  with  words. 

Judging,  then,  by  the  facts,  we  shall  not  have  great 
difficulty  in  realising,  from  the  details  of  the  fore- 
going chapters,  how  far  the  evolution  of  the  Cabinet 
had  proceeded  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  existence  of  strongly  marked  parties  had 
drawn  statesmen  together  into  two  fairly  permanent 
groups.  It  was  comparatively  easy  to  say  of  a  pro- 
minent politician,  whether  he  called  himself  a  Tory 
or  a  Whig.  He  might  really  be  a  Jacobite  ;  but  he 
would  still  call  himself  a  Ton',  because:  it  was  safer. 
He  might  really  be  a  Republican  ;  but,  for  a  similar 
reason,  he  would  call  himself  a  Whig.  Further  than 
this,  the  reigning  monarch  was  beginning  to  discover 
that,  on  the  whole,  he  was  likely  to  be  better,  that  is, 
more  pleasantly,  served,  if  his  chief  servants  were  at 
union  amongst  themselves.  William,  at  least,  was 
rather  doubtful  whether  the  calm  produced  by  such 
an  union  was  not  somewhat  of  the  nature  of  the  calm 
which  precedes  the  storm  ;   but  even  he  was  inclined 


THE   KING'S   SUPREMACY  95 

to  hope  for  the  best.  Finally,  it  was  also  slowly 
appearing,  that  a  Ministry  which  commanded  the 
confidence  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  able  to 
do  very  much  more  for  the  King  than  a  Ministry 
which  did  not.  But  no  English  monarch  had  as  yet 
admitted,  either  in  theory  or  in  practice,  that  he  was 
bound  to  change  his  Ministry  at  the  bidding  of  the 
Mouse  of  Commons. 

And,  beyond  and  above  all,  no  English  monarch, 
and  least  of  all  William  of  Orange,  had  ever  admitted 
that  he  was  bound  to  obey  the  advice  of  his  Ministers 
against  his  own  judgment.  It  is  odd  that  there  should 
be  any  doubt  upon  this  point  ;  for  this  was  the  pre- 
cise position  which  William  had  resolutely  refused  to 
accept  in  1688,  and  the  whole  of  his  conduct  showed 
that  he  adhered  to  his  original  resolution.  We  have 
seen  that  when  William  went  to  Ireland  in  1690,  he 
appointed  a  strong  Council,  which  was,  undoubtedly, 
intended  to  direct  the  policy  of  the  State  during  his 
absence.  What  was  this  but  to  say,  that  he  regarded 
Mary  as  on  a  different  footing  from  himself  in  the  con- 
duct of  affairs?  When  he  returned,  the  Council  was 
dissolved.  What  was  this  but  to  announce  that  the 
policy  of  the  kingdom  was  once  more  in  the  hands 
of  the  King?  No  doubt  William,  on  more  than 
one  occasion,  gave  way  against  his  judgment ;  but 
it  was  simply  as  a  matter  of  diplomacy,  to  gain 
some  weightier  end.  If  Parliament  would  not  vote 
him  money,  he  could  not  carry  on  that  war  against 
Erance  upon  which  his  whole  soul  was  set ;  and 
therefore  he  was  willing  to  give  way  on  a  minor 
point  if  Parliament  would  grant  him    money.     But, 


g6  S/GNS    OF   CHANGE 

if  he  could  have  secured  funds  elsewhere,  he  would 
no  more  have  hesitated   to  declare  war  against   the 
wishes  of  his  Ministers  than  he  would  have  abstained 
from  going  hunting  without  their  permission.     Over 
and   over  again   he  refused  to  follow  the  wishes   of 
the  part}'  in  power.     Though  the  Triennial  Act  was 
won  from  him  at  a  moment  of  deep  personal  distress, 
he  steadily  refused  his  consent  to  the  Place  Bill.      He 
declined  to  sanction  a  policy  of  persecution  against 
Dissenters,   when    such  a   course    would    have    been 
highly  popular.     He  took  the  advice  of  counsellors 
who  had   no  sort  of  constitutional  position,  men   like 
Bentinck,  Zulestein,  Albemarle,  Auverquerque  ;  and 
did  not  hesitate  to  prefer  it  to  that  of  his  Ministers. 
Ik-    negatived    the    Bill    to  fix    the  judges'    salaries, 
for  very  good  reasons,  as  Macaulay  has  shown.     He 
negatived    the    mischievous    Elections    Bill  of   1696. 
Even    his    willingness    to    fall    in    with    the    famous 
suggestion  attributed  to  Sunderland  affords  no  proof 
of  his  acceptance  of  the  Cabinet  theory  of  govern- 
ment.    As  he  had  very   few  preferences   among  his 
English  Ministers,  and   as  he  did   not  intend   to  be 
governed  by  any  of  them,  it  cost  him  little  to  try  an 
experiment  which  might  bring  him  some  good,  and 
certainly  could    do  him   little  harm.      Had    William 
been  keenly  in  sympathy  with  either  political  party, 
and  yet  consented  to  form  a  Ministry  from  the  other, 
the    case    would    have    been     different.       But    it    is 
notorious  that,  except  on  one  or  two  points,  he  was 
a  Gallio  in  English  politics. 

In  truth,  the  critical  period  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Cabinet  System  was,  not  the  last  half  of  the  seven- 


GOVERNMENT   OF  ANNE  97 

teenth  century,  but  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth. 
We  may  even  draw  the  limits  still  closer.  At  the 
accession  of  Anne,  the  Cabinet  System  was  a  dimly 
formed  project ;  at  the  death  of  George  I.,  only 
twenty-five  years  later,  it  was  an  accomplished  fact. 
This  is,  of  course,  only  another  way  of  saying  that, 
in  the  conduct  of  Anne  and  her  successor,  we  ought 
to  find,  if  our  views  are  correct,  that  attitude  towards 
their  own  office  which  is  alone  compatible  with  the 
existence  of  Cabinet  government. 

It  has  been,  no  doubt,  the  fashion  for  historians  to 
underestimate  the  capacity  of  Queen  Anne  ;  and  a 
recent  essayist  has  done  good  service  by  protesting 
against  the  tendency.  He  has  shown  that,  on  one 
occasion  at  least,  the  personal  resolution  of  Anne 
effected  a  change  of  Ministry.  In  the  year  1710  the 
Whigs,  notwithstanding  their  majority  in  Parliament, 
were  dismissed,  and  replaced  by  Tories ;  and  the 
change  was,  undoubtedly,  the  personal  act  of  the 
Queen.  But,  in  truth,  the  crisis  is  really  a  striking 
example  of  the  change  which  had  come  over  the 
spirit  of  English  politics  since  the  death  of  William. 
If  the  Queen  could  have  had  her  own  way,  the  Tories 
would  never  have  been  out  of  office  at  all.  Her  ability 
was  shown  by  her  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  the 
Whigs,  though  victorious  in  Parliament,  had  ruined 
themselves  in  the  eyes  of  the  country  by  the  prose- 
cution of  Sacheverel,  and  that  they  were,  conse- 
quently, at  her  mercy.  Her  act  was,  therefore,  in 
the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  "  constitutional." 
She  appealed  from  Parliament  to  the  country,  and, 
thereby,  fulfilled  what  is  admitted  to  be  the  supreme 

8 


98  SIGNS   OF  CHANGE 

duty  of  the  monarch  in  a  system  suc.i  as  ours,  viz., 
to  interpret  aright  the  feelings  of  the  nation.  But  it 
is  necessary  to  be  more  precise. 

At  the  death  of  William  1 1 1,  there  were  in  existence 
a  Whig  House  of  Commons  and  a  Ministry  of  the 
old  type,  that  is  to  say,  a  Ministry  which  contained 
members  of  both  political  parties.  According  to 
ancient  usage,  both  would  have  expired  with  the 
death  of  the  King  ;  but  by  a  recent  statute  it  had 
been  provided  that,  on  the  demise  of  the  Crown,  the 
existing  Parliament  should  continue  in  office  for  six 
months,  unless  sooner  dissolved.  The  Queen  had, 
therefore,  a  perfectly  free  hand ;  and  she  speedily 
showed  her  preference  by  entrusting  to  Tories  the 
chief  posts  in  the  State.  Godolphin  was  given  the 
great  office  of  Lord  Treasurer.  Rochester,  the 
Queen's  uncle,  whose  removal  from  the  post  of 
Viceroy  of  Ireland  had  been  determined  upon, 
but  not  completed,  by  William,  was  continued  in 
his  seat.  Wright,  the  unworthy  successor  of  Somers, 
continued  to  hold  the  Great  Seal,  though  only  as 
"  Keeper."  The  High  Tory  Nottingham  was  made 
Secretary  of  State,  with  Hedges,  his  nominee,  as  his 
colleague.  The  Queen's  husband,  Prince  George  of 
Denmark,  presumably  a  Tor)'  (though  he  secretly 
sympathised  with  the  aspirations  of  the  Noncon- 
formists) became  Lord  High  Admiral.  .Above  all, 
Marlborough,  now,  by  means  of  his  wife's  influence 
over  the  Queen,  a  very  important  personage,  was 
created  Captain-General  of  the  Land  Forces  ;  and, 
at  this  time,  he  was  certainly  a  Tory.  Almost 
the  only  Whig  of  any  weight  retained  in   office  was 


Photo  by] 


[Walker  &  CockeitU. 


LAURENCE    HYDE,    EAKL   OF   ROCHESTER   (1641-171  I). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery* 


IOO  S/GNS   OF  CHANGE 

Devonshire,  who,  moreover,  had  only  the  non-adminis- 
trative post  of  Lord  Steward  of  the  Household. 

The  enthusiasm  with  which  the  accession  of  the 
Queen  was  received  enabled  the  Tories  to  strike 
another  blow  at  their  opponents.  In  her  first 
speech  to  Parliament,  which  had  certainly  been 
prepared  for  her  by  her  Ministers,  the  Queen  spoke 
of  her  heart  as  being  "entirely  English."  The  Whig 
House  of  Commons  took  the  expression  as  reflecting 
on  the  memory  of  her  predecessor,  and  resented  it 
freely.  Warned  of  the  temper  of  the  Commons  by 
this  incident,  the  Queen,  so  soon  as  the  Civil  List  had 
been  voted,  dissolved  Parliament,  and  the  elections 
of  the  autumn  returned  a  strong  Tory  majority. 

Thus  was  at  once  created  the  most  favourable 
possible  conjunction  of  circumstances  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Cabinet  System.  The  Queen,  though, 
as  has  been  admitted,  by  no  means  a  cipher,  was  by 
nature  lethargic  and  unsuspicious.  With  a  strong 
sense  of  private  duty,  her  public  activity  was  in- 
clined to  restrict  itself  almost  wholly  to  Church 
matters.  In  these  she  found  only  too  ardent  a 
support  from  her  Ministers,  to  whom  she  was,  in 
consequence,  ready  to  leave  the  management  of 
secular  business.  Of  William's  deep  feeling  of  re- 
sponsibility in  political  affairs,  his  firm  devotion 
to  justice,  his  profound  knowledge  of  European 
diplomacy,  she  had  absolutely  nothing.  Strong 
in  their  knowledge  of  the  Queen's  favour,  and 
confident  in  their  majority  in  the  Commons,  the 
Ministers  felt  their  power,  and  determined  to  use  it. 

Two  matters  of  first-rate  importance  had  been  the 


FRAXCM   AND  SCOTLAND  lot 

care  of  William  in  his  dying  moments.  One  of  them 
was  the  war  with  France.  The  act  of  Louis  XIV.  in 
recognising,  on  the  death  of  James  II.  in  1701,  the 
claims  of  his  son,  the  "  Old  Pretender,"  to  the  Crowns 
of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  had  roused  the 
nation  to  an  enthusiasm  for  the  Revolution  which 
William  had  in  vain  sought  to  inspire  ;  and  the  King 
had  died,  happy  in  the  thought  that  his  long-cherished 
plans  would  bear  fruit  at  last.  Even  the  Tories, 
lukewarm  as  they  had  long  been  on  the  subject, 
shared  the  national  feelings  ;  and  Marlborough,  whose 
instincts  were  at  least  as  much  professional  as  political, 
took  care  that  there  should  be  no  wavering.  On 
May  4,  1702,  war  was  formally  declared  against 
France  and  Spain,  and  the  Captain-General  departed 
on  his  fateful  mission  to  the  Low  Countries,  destined 
to  be  the  theatre  of  a  long  and  tragic  struggle.  The 
Whig  Parliament  had,  of  course,  ardently  supported 
the  war  ;  and  even  the  new  House  of  Commons  had 
followed  suit.  Here,  at  least,  there  could  be  no 
turning  back. 

The  other  object  of  William's  desire  was  equally 
important,  and  even  more  unquestionably  wise.  He 
had  long  viewed  with  anxiety  the  relations  between 
England  and  Scotland.  The  natural  attachment  of 
the  northern  kingdom  to  the  Stuart  cause,  the  ancient 
connection  between  Scotland  and  France,  were  per- 
haps the  features  of  the  situation  which  impressed 
themselves  most  strongly  upon  him.  The  action  of 
the  Scottish  Parliament  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
had  been  critical.  The  massacre  of  Glencoe  and  the 
failure  of  the  Darien  scheme   had    stirred    up   bitter 


102  S/GNS    OP   CHANGl: 

hostility  against  England.  No  provision  correspond- 
ing with  the  Act  of  Settlement  had  yet  made  any 
provision  for  the  Scottish  succession  in  the  now 
probable  event  of  the  death  of  Anne  without  issue. 
In  the  deep-seated  differences  between  the  two 
countries  in  the  matter  of  Church  government 
William  saw  grave  cause  for  alarm. 

So  manifest  was  the  necessity  for  action  that,  even 
before  the  chancre  of  Ministers,  the  Queen  had  com- 
mitted  herself  to  it  in  her  first  speech  to  Parliament. 
Her  new  advisers,  whatever  their  private  feelings,  did 
not  venture  to  go  back  on  this  announcement;  and, 
before  the  Whig  Parliament  was  dissolved,  they 
brought  in  a  Pill  to  appoint  Commissioners  to  treat 
iif  a  Union.  The  Pill  was,  of  course,  passed;  but 
it  was  remarked  that  many  of  the  Tories  offered 
it  a  strenuous  opposition,  and,  though  they  did  not 
succeed  in  defeating  it,  they  rendered  its  chances 
of  success  precarious  by  the  intemperate  bitterness 
of  their  reflections  on  the  Scots.  The  conduct  of  the 
new  Ministry  was  equally  foolish.  They  procured 
the  dismissal  of  William's  Scottish  representatives, 
and  replaced  them  by  their  own  nominees.  The 
Duke  of  Queensberry  was  made  Secretary  of  State 
and  High  Commissioner,  the  Marquis  of  Annandale 
President  of  the  Council,  Lord  Tullibardine  Privy 
Seal,  Lord  Seafield  Chancellor,  and  Lord  Boyle 
Treasurer.  Most  of  these  men,  though  they  had 
submitted  to  William's  government,  were  avowed 
Jacobites,  who  prided  themselves  on  their  opposition 
to  the  Revolution  ;  and  the  only  question  with  them 
was,  how   far  they  would  follow  the  directions  of  the 


Till-    SCOTTISH  PARLIAMENT  t03 

English  Ministers,  and  how  far  endeavour  to  carry 
out  an  independent  Jacobite  policy  in  Scotland.  So 
openly  were  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  derided 
by  those  in  authority,  that  the  Episcopalians,  and 
even  the  Jacobites,  felt  confident  of  a  restoration  to 
their  privileges,  so  soon  as  the  Scottish  Parliament 
should  assemble. 

This  event  took  place  at  the  beginning  of  May, 
1703,  and  the  dangers  of  the  situation  were  at  once 
manifest.  Although  the  Estates  passed  a  Bill  to 
recognise  the  personal  title  of  Anne,1  the  recognition 
was  grudgingly  worded.  But  when  the  Ministers 
introduced  a  Bill  of  Toleration,  which  would  have 
recognised  the  legal  status  of  Episcopacy,  a  furious 
opposition,  headed  by  Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  at  once 
broke  out.  Not  only  was  the  Toleration  Bill 
defeated,  but  a  new  confirmation  of  the  Presbyterian 
Settlement  of  1689  was  exacted  from  the  reluctant 
Government,  and  then,  flushed  with  their  victory, 
the  Opposition  proceeded  to  bring  in  a  drastic  Act 
for  the  Security  of  the  Kingdom.  This  measure,  with 
a  skilful  appeal  to  the  national  fear  of  absorption,  was 
aimed  at  imposing  upon  the  future  occupants  of  the 
throne  a  series  of  restrictions  which,  if  enforced, 
would  have  converted  the  government  into  that  of  a 
Republic.  Annual  Parliaments  were  to  be  compulsory, 
and  the  power  of  dissolution  was  to  be  abolished. 
For  every  new  peer  created,  an  addition  was  to  be 
made  to  the  representatives  of  the  Commons  in  the 
Estates.     The  royal  right  of  veto  was  to  be  reduced 

1  This  had  been   rendered  necessary  by  the  passing  of  the   Scottish 
Claim  of  Right  in  1689. 


104  S/GNS   OP  CtfANGF. 

to  a  mere  form.  The  decision  of  peace  and  war,  and 
the  appointment  of  all  public  offices,  civil  and  military, 
were  to  belong  to  Parliament,  without  whose  consent 
not  a  single  regular  soldier  could  be  maintained,  nor 
any  pardon  granted.  The  judges  were  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  Parliament,  and  all  ex-officio  votes  in  the 
Estates  abolished.  With  great  astuteness,  the  framers 
of  the  Bill  inserted  a  clause  restricting  its  effect  to 
monarchs  who  should  also  be  Kings  of  England  ;  and 
thus  secured  the  adhesion  of  those  whose  patriotism 
was  stronger  than  their  Toryism.  Some  even  of  the 
Ministers  were  believed  to  be  favourable  to  the 
measure,  and  a  significant  discussion  upon  the  possi- 
bilities of  a  Regency,  in  the  event  of  this  chosen 
successor  being  under  age,  showed  the  way  in  which 
some  men's  thoughts  were  turning.1  It  was,  of  course, 
hardly  possible  that  sincere  Protestants,  as  most  of 
the  Scottish  Whigs  unquestionably  were,  should  have 
seriously  considered  the  possibility  of  a  Catholic 
monarch  ;  or  that  any  real  cordiality  should  exist 
between  them  and  the  Jacobites.  But,  in  the  mean- 
time, the  co-operation  of  the  two  parties  placed 
the  Government  in  an  awkward  position  ;  for  the 
Bill  was  actually  carried  on  August  13th  by  a 
majority  of  59,  and,  when  the  High  Commissioner 
announced  that  the  Queen  refused  her  consent,  the 
Whig  leaders  fiercely  denied  the  royal  power  of 
veto,2  and  the  session  was  terminated  by  the  High 
Commissioner  without  a  vote  of  Supply. 

1  The  Pretender  was  at  this  time-  only  fifteen  years  old. 
This  claim  was  by  no  means  so  extravagant  as  ii  sounds,  but  there 
was  an  awkward  Act  of  1660  against  it. 


OCCASIONAL    CONFORMITY  BILL  105 

The  Scottish  Estates  did  not  assemble  again  until 
July  of  1704,  and,  the  necessity  for  Supply  being 
really  urgent,  the  supporters  of  the  Act  of  Security 
resolved  to  carry  their  measure  by  tacking  it  to  the 
Money  Bill.  Realising  the  hopelessness  of  their 
position,  the  Government  at  last  gave  way,  and  the 
Act  of  Security  received  the  royal  assent.  Even  this 
surrender,  however,  only  produced  a  six  months' 
Supply.  As  for  the  prospects  of  Union,  these 
appeared  further  off  than  ever,  and  indeed  Burnet 
accuses  the  Ministers  of  having  definitely  abandoned 
the  measure. 

Meanwhile,  the  real  energies  of  the  Government 
had  been  devoted  to  the  furtherance,  in  the  English 
Parliament,  of  the  famous  Occasional  Conformity 
Bill.  This  measure  was  intended  to  put  an  end,  in 
the  interests  of  the  Established  Church,  to  a  practice 
in  itself  bad  enough,  but  the  blame  of  which  lay 
at  least  as  much  upon  those  who  imposed  it  as  on 
those  who  made  use  of  it.  The  iron  scheme  of 
Anglican  intolerance  laid  down  by  Clarendon  at 
the  Restoration,  had  excluded  from  royal  and  muni- 
cipal office  all  who  refused  to  take  the  sacrament 
according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Many  Nonconformists  had  steadily  resisted  all 
temptation  to  comply  with  a  requirement  against 
which  their  consciences  revolted.  But  many  others, 
of  laxer  principles,  had  consented  to  receive  the 
Anglican  Sacraments  in  order  to  qualify  for  office. 
The  Test  had,  in  fact,  become  a  mere  form.  But 
now  the  Tories  determined  that  the  bonds  of 
sectarianism   should   be  tightened.      The  Occasional 


io6  S/GNS  OP  CHA  vat- 

Conformity  Bill,  which,  though  it  was  not  formally 
introduced  by  a  Minister,  was  strenuously  backed 
by  the  whole  weight  of  the  Government,  provided 
that  a  person  who  had  qualified  for  office  by 
taking  the  Sacrament,  and  afterwards  been  present 
at  any  religious  service  conducted  otherwise  than 
in  accordance  with  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England, 
should  forfeit  .£100  for  the  offence,  pay  a  fine  of  £5 
a  day  so  long  as  he  continued  to  hold  office,  and  be 
incapable  of  employment  for  at  least  a  year  after 
conforming  to  the  requirements  of  the  Test  and 
Corporation   Acts. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  framers  of  this  measure 
had  none  of  the  excuses  which,  in  the  exes  of  some 
thoughtful  historians,  go  far  to  justify  the  original 
promoters  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts. 
Clarendon  and  his  colleagues  had  thought,  and 
perhaps  rightly,  that  the  Dissenters  were,  as  a  body, 
opposed  to  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.,  and  that 
their  continuance  in  office  would  be  a  real  danger  to 
the  State.  The  framers  of  the  Occasional  Conformitv 
Bill  knew  well  that  the  Protestant  Dissenters,  against 
whom  the  Hill  was  notoriously  directed,  were  firmly 
attached  to  the  Revolution  settlement,  under  which 
.\nnc  occupied  the  throne.  The  party  whose  loyalty 
was  really  doubtful  was  the  very  party  which  urged  on 
the  measure.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  pure  piece  of  religious 
and  political  persecution,  hypocritically  disguised 
tinder  the  cloak  of  an  affected  reverence  for  the 
ordinances  of  the  Church.  The  men  who  evaded 
the  antiquated  provisions  of  the  Test  and  Corpora- 
tion Acts  by  the  formal  compliance  with  the  statutory 


Disputed  elections  to" 

provisions  were  always  Dissenters  and  usually 
Whigs.  That  was  sufficient,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Church  and  Tory  party,  to  mark  them  out  for 
ostracism. 

The  Bill  rapidly  passed  the  Tory  House  of  Com- 
mons by  large  majorities,  but  received  a  severe  check 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  where  the  Whig  peers  and 
several  of  William's  bishops  succeeded  in  introducing 
substantial  amendments.  A  conference  between  the 
Houses  followed  ;  but  no  agreement  was  arrived  at, 
and  the  measure  dropped  for  the  session.  In 
November,  at  the  opening  of  the  new  session,  it 
again  rapidly  passed  through  the  Commons,  but  was 
again,  as  summarily,  rejected  by  the  Lords.  The 
feeling  between  the  Houses  rose  high,  and  eventually, 
in  the  spring  of  1704,  culminated  over  an  event  which 
excited  great  interest  at  the  time,  and  which  (though 
its  importance  in  that  respect  has  been  overlooked), 
was  of  considerable  consequence  to  the  future  of  the 
Cabinet  System. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  Commons  had  successfully  vindicated  their  right 
to  be  the  sole  judges  of  disputed  elections  to  their 
own  body.  The  achievement  was  one  of  the  earliest 
of  the  victories  of  Parliament  over  James  I.,  and  it 
was  a  real  step  in  the  direction  of  freedom.  But, 
with  the  growth  of  the  Party  System,  it  soon  became 
obvious,  that  election  decisions  were  no  whit  more 
impartial  in  the  House  of  Commons  than  they  had 
been  in  the  royal  Chancery.  The  more  powerful 
part)r  simply  voted  for  its  own  candidate,  in  spite 
of  the   clearest    evidence,  or,   better   still,   influenced 


IOS  S/GNS   OF  CHANGE 

the  returning  officer  to  refuse   the  votes  of  electors 
known  to  be  unfavourable  to  itself. 

An  example  of  the  latter  practice  had  recently 
occurred.  At  the  elections  in  January,  1700,  one 
Matthew  Ashby  had  tendered  his  vote  at  the  Ayles- 
bury poll,  and  it  had  been  refused  by  the  returning 
officer,  the  Mayor,  apparently  on  no  good  ground. 
Instead  of  petitioning  against  the  return,  Ashby  took 
the  novel  step  of  bringing  an  action  against  the 
Mayor  for  violation  of  a  common-law  right.  He 
thus  transferred  the  decision  of  the  question  from  the 
Mouse  of  Commons  to  the  County  Assizes.  Here  he 
was  successful  in  obtaining  a  verdict  for  damages;  but 
the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  in  London,  with  whom  it 
rested  to  pronounce  judgment,  refused,  against  the 
opinion  of  Chief  Justice  Holt,  to  follow  the  verdict. 
Therefore  Ashby  appealed  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
not  as  a  House  of  Parliament,  but  as  the  supreme 
appellate  tribunal  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  the  Lords, 
by  a  large  majority,  reversed  the  judgment  of  the 
Queen's  Bench,  and  ordered  judgment  to  be  entered 
for  Ashby. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  decision  did  not 
directly  infringe  the  privileges  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Ashby's  vote  was,  for  that  election  at 
least,  irrevocably  lost ;  and,  had  the  question  subse- 
quently come  before  the  House  of  Commons  as  an 
election  petition,  the  House  would  have  been  legally 
entitled  to  disregard  the  judgment.  But  it  obviously 
threatened  to  make  the  misconduct  of  returning 
officers  a  costly  offence,  even  when  countenanced  by 
the  part)-  in  power ;    and    it   manifestly  threw   upon 


THE   AYLESBURY   CASE  IOQ 

the  Commons  the  responsibility  for  a  partiality  which 
they  would  fain  have  shifted  elsewhere.  It  may  be 
well  admitted,  that  the  dual  position  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  as  a  branch  of  the  legislature  and  also  the 
supreme  common-law  tribunal,  was  an  anomaly.  It 
was,  however,  an  anomaly  which  had  grown  up  with 
the  Constitution  ;  and  it  ill  became  the  party  which 
professed  to  regard  the  ancient  order  with  almost 
superstitious  reverence,  to  attempt  the  violation  of  an 
ancient  rule. 

But  party  spirit  knows  no  logic,  and,  chafing  at 
its  rebuff  over  the  Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  the 
House  of  Commons  flew  upon  the  decision  in  the 
Aylesbury  case,  determining  to  treat  it  as  a  breach  of 
privilege.  As  it  could  not  well  be  denied  that,  if  the 
question  of  Ashby's  right  to  vote  was  triable  by  the 
ordinary  tribunals,  the  appeal  to  the  House  of  Lords 
followed  as  of  course,  the  Commons  were  under  the 
necessity  of  repudiating  altogether  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  ordinary  tribunals  in  such  cases.  This  was 
a  particularly  difficult  position  to  take  up,  for,  no 
longer  than  eight  years  before,  an  Act  of  Parliament 
had  expressly  declared  the  right  of  a  duly  elected 
candidate  to  recover  damages  against  a  returning 
officer  for  a  false  or  double  return.  Swallowing  the 
inconsistency,  however,  and  ignoring  some  admirably 
reasoned  protests  against  the  course  proposed,  the 
House,  after  a  prolonged  sitting,  adopted  a  series  of 
five  resolutions,  which  declared  Ashby's  action  to  be 
a  contempt  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  House,  and 
threatened  him,  and  all  others  who  should  follow  his 
example,  with  the  consequences  of  breach  of  privilege. 


I  10  S/GNS    OF   CHANGE 

Not  content  with  these  steps,  the  House  sounded  the 
note  of  defiance  bv  ordering  the  resolutions,  signed 
by  the  clerk,  to  be  affixed  to  Westminster  Hall  Gate. 
The  Lords  could  not  submit  to  such  an  affront,  and 
ordered  a  Committee  to  search  for  precedents,  with 
the  result  that  the  Upper  House  passed  a  series  of 
counter-resolutions  affirming,  in  temperate  language, 
the  common-law  rights  of  the  subject,  and  declaring, 
with  undeniable  force,  the  claims  of  the  Commons  to 
be,  in  effect,  a  manifest  attempt  to  assert  a  vote  of 
that  House  to  be  superior  to  the  law  of  the  land. 
Encouraged  by  this  action,  five  other  persons,  whose 
votes  had  likewise  been  rejected  at  the  Aylesbury 
election,  commenced  proceedings  against  the  return- 
ing officer;  whereupon  the  House  of  Commons,  upon 
its  reassembling  in  die  autumn  of  1704,  committed 
the  "  Aylesbury  Men  "  (as  the  new  suitors  were 
called)  for  breach  of  privilege,  and,  upon  their 
application  for  enlargement  on  Habeas  Corpus,  the 
Court  of  Queen's  Bench  refused  to  interfere.  There- 
upon the  prisoners  applied  for  a  second  Writ  of  Hn-or, 
which  would  have  once  more  brought  the  question 
before  the  Lords  ;  but,  though  the  granting  of  such  a 
writ  was  a  mere  formal  preliminary  to  the  appeal,  the 
Commons  took  the  extreme  step  of  petitioning  the 
Queen  to  refuse  it,  alleging  the  extraordinary  reason, 
that  thi'}-  had  been  liberal  in  voting  the  supplies 
demanded  by  the  Crown.  Not  content  with  this 
outrageous  defiance  of  the  principles  of  justice,  the 
1  louse  went  still  further,  and  0  >mmitted  to  the  custody 
of  the  Serjeant-at-arms  two  of  the  counsel  who  had 
appeared  for  the  Aylesbury  Men.       Meanwhile,  the 


DIVISIONS   IN    THE   MINISTRY  III 

High  Tories  in  the  Commons  had  made  a  third  and 
desperate  attempt  to  push  through  their  favourite 
Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  by  tacking  it  to  a  Bill  of 
Supply  ;  and,  though  they  failed  in  this  extreme 
proposal,  the  Bill  was  once  more  carried  and  sent 
up  to  the  Lords,  who,  however,  notwithstanding 
the  presence  of  the  Queen  at  the  debate,  again 
rejected  it  by  a  decisive  majority.  Other  quarrels 
between  the  Houses  arose,  and,  finally,  the  Ministry 
were  glad  to  escape  from  an  intolerable  position,  by 
advising  the  Queen  to  prorogue  Parliament,  with  the 
unpleasant  prospect  of  having  to  face  a  General 
Election  with  greatly  impaired  popularity. 

A  still  greater  danger  to  the  stability  of  the 
Ministry  lay  in  the  fact,  that  a  division  had  already 
appeared  in  its  own  ranks.  Marlborough  and 
Godolphin  cared  very  little  for  the  Anglican  enthu- 
siasm of  Nottingham  and  the  High  Tories ;  their 
main  object  was  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  war. 
On  the  other  hand,  Nottingham  and  his  friends  were 
but  lukewarm  on  the  subject  of  the  war,  which  they 
regarded  as  a  Whig  legacy  bequeathed  by  William. 
The  feelings  of  the  two  sections  had  become  em- 
bittered as  early  as  1704;  and  the  influence  of 
Marlborough's  wife  was  sufficient  to  turn  the  scale 
against  the  men  whom  her  husband  accused  of 
starving  the  campaigns.  Greatly  to  his  chagrin, 
Nottingham's  offer  of  resignation  had  been  accepted 
by  the  Queen,  and  his  place,  and  that  of  Rochester, 
who  had  retired  in  a  private  quarrel  in  1702,  had 
been  taken  by  Harley  and  St.  John.  The  latter, 
though    undoubtedly  Tories,  were,    in    1704,    not    of 


112  S/GNS   OF  CHANGE 

sufficient  importance  to  cause  serious  anxiety  to 
Marlborough  and  Godolphin.  The  change  was 
immediately  followed  by  the  brilliant  victory  of 
Blenheim,  the  greatest  land  achievement  of  English 
troops  since  the  day  of  Agincourt.  The  nation 
became  enthusiastic  over  the  victor,  whose  affection 
for  his  Tory  friends  had  not  been  increased  by  their 
refusal,  in  1702,  to  adopt  the  Queen's  suggestion  that 
a  pension  of  .£5,000  a  year  should  be  settled  upon 
him  for  the  support  of  his  new  dukedom.  Marl- 
borough and  Godolphin  gradually  drew  towards  the 
Whigs,  whose  support  of  the  war  was  genuine  and 
hearty  ;  and  they  only  awaited  the  result  of  the 
elections  to  declare  themselves  openly.  The  elections 
took  place  in  the  summer  of  1705,  and  the  Whigs 
secured  a  substantial  majority,  as  was  proved  by  the 
struggle  over  the  Speakership  which  took  place 
immediately  on  the  assembling  of  Parliament,  and  in 
which  the  Whig  candidate,  Smith,  was  victorious  over 
Bromley,  the  Tory  member  for  Oxford  University, 
by  a  majority  of  43  votes.  The  blow  was 
immediately  followed  up.  Wright,  the  Tory  Lord 
Keeper,  was  dismissed,  and  his  place  taken  by 
Cowper,  the  leader  of  the  Whig  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Even  more  significant  than  the 
appointment  was  the  fact  that  it  was  negotiated 
through  the  veteran  Whig  statesman,  Montagu, 
now  Baron  Halifax.  In  the  following  year  (1706) 
the  younger  Sunderland,  a  strong  Whig,  became 
Secretary  of  State.  Thus,  though  JIarley  and  St. 
John  retained  their  offices  until  1708,  the  Cabinet 
became  practically  Whig  ;   for  Godolphin  and   Marl- 


Photo  bv]  [Walker  &Cockertll 

MO .1KKT    11AKLEY,    EARL    OF   OXFORD    (1661-I724). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Godfrey  Knellcr,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


114  SIGNS    OF   CHANGE 

borough    must    now    be    reckoned    to    have    broken 
decidedly   with   their   former  allies. 

If  ;m  exact  date  be  fixed  for  the  commencement  of 
the  Cabinet  System,  the  year  1705  has  far  greater 
claims  than  any  which  preceded  it.  The  change  of 
policy  was  complete.  The  Queen  wrote  in  a  private 
letter,  that  "  Rochester  and  Nottingham  had  so 
behaved  themselves  that  it  was  impossible  for  her 
ever  to  employ  them  again,  and  that  she  looked  for 
support  from  the  Whigs."  The  first  part  of  this 
sentence  sounds  of  the  old  days,  when  the  personal 
feelings  of  the  monarch  were  the  sole  avenue  to  high 
office.  But  the  latter  clause  is  eminently  suggestive. 
It  must  have  been  very  hard  for  Anne  to  write  such 
words.  In  spite  of  the  personal  influence  of  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  the  Queen  remained  a 
convinced  Tory  to  the  end  of  her  days.  It  can 
scarcely  have  been  anything  less  than  the  force  of 
public  opinion,  as  manifested  by  the  elections,  which 
caused  her  to  take  the  unpleasant  step. 

Almost  immediately  afterwards,  there  occurred 
another  event  of  the  greatest  importance  in  the 
history  of  the  Cabinet  System.  One  of  the  first 
cares  of  the  new  Government,  after  the  meeting  of 
Parliament  in  the  autumn  of  1705,  was  to  introduce  a 
measure  for  the  further  security  of  the  Hanoverian 
succession.  The  chief  object  of  the  measure,  which 
was  initiated  with  great  solemnity  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  was  to  arrange  a  careful  plan  for  the  dangerous 
crisis  which  would  inevitably  occur  if,  at  the  death  of 
the  Queen,  her  destined  successor  were  not  within  the 
kingdom.     The  Bill  was    specially  entrusted    to  the 


HANOVERIAN  SUCCESSION  11$ 

judges  to  be  drafted  ;  but,  when  it  reached  the 
Committee  stage  in  the  House  of  Commons,  an 
important  amendment  was  proposed  by  the  Tories, 
in  alliance  with  a  section  of  the  Whigs  which  had  not 
been  altogether  satisfied  with  the  recent  changes  in 
office.  When,  in  the  year  1700,  the  death  of  the 
little  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  last  survivor  of  Anne's 
numerous  children,  had  rendered  the  question  of  the 
succession  acute,  even  the  Tory  Parliament  of  that 
year  had  admitted  the  necessity  for  providing  a 
Protestant  successor  in  the  too  probable  event  of  the 
failure  of  the  Revolution  dynasty.  But,  as  the  price 
of  this  concession,  it  had  demanded  the  enactment  of 
several  clauses  intended  to  guard  against  a  repetition 
of  the  evils  which  it  alleged  to  have  been  practised  in 
the  reign  of  William.  It  was,  accordingly,  provided, 
in  the  Act  which  settled  the  succession  on  the  House 
of  Hanover,  that,  after  the  accession  of  that  House,  no 
occupant  of  the  throne  should  leave  England  without 
the  consent  of  Parliament,  that  no  foreigner  should 
hold  office  or  receive  grants  from  the  Crown,  that  no 
war  should  be  entered  upon  by  England  on  behalf 
of  the  foreign  dominions  of  the  monarch,  that  the 
judges'  commissions  should  be  made  quamdiu  bow 
se  gesserint,  and  that  they  should  be  paid  by  fixed 
salaries  instead  of  by  fees,  that  all  business  properly 
belonging  to  the  Privy  Council  should  be  there  openly 
discussed  and  the  resolutions  thereupon  signed  by 
the  members  assenting  thereto,  and  that  no  person 
holding  office  under  or  receiving  a  pension  from 
the  Crown,  should  be  capable  of  sitting  in  the  House 
of  Commons. 


Il6  S/GNS   OF  CHANGE 

It  was  this  last  clause  which  the  Tory  opposition 
in  1705  desired  to  modify  ;  but  there  is  little  reason 
to  believe  that  the  desire  arose  from  any  other  source 
than  the  conviction,  that  the  framers  of  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  in  their  zeal  against  William,  had  incurred 
the  grave  risk  of  rendering  the  House  of  Commons 
permanently  inferior  in  power  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
which  had  long  been,  and  seemed  likely  long  to 
be,  predominantly  Whig.  For,  if  the  holders  of 
important  political  offices  were  not  members  of  the 
Lower  House,  it  was  pretty  certain  that  they  would 
be  members  of  the  Upper  ;  and  the  centre  of  political 
business  would  therefore  be  permanently  lodged  in 
the  House  of  Lords. 

The  Opposition  in  1705,  accordingly,  bent  all  its 
energies  to  modify  the  clause  in  question,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  carrying  in  Committee  an  •amendment  to 
the  effect  that  the  acceptance  of  any  of  a  list  of  speci- 
fied posts — comprising,  in  fact,  the  most  important 
political  offices  in  the  Ministry — should  not  dis- 
qualify for  membership  of  the  Commons.1  The 
Lords,  on  the  return  of  the  Kill,  not  unnaturally 
objected  to  the  form  of  the  amendment,  on  the 
ground  that,  in  effect,  it  claimed  that  the  offices 
in  question  properly  belonged,  as  of  right,  to  the 
Commons.  They  were  not,  however,  unwilling  to 
make  some  concession,  and  suggested  that  the  ex- 
clusion   should    be    limited   to   persons   holding  new 

'  Burnet,  in  his  "  History"  (vol.  ii.  p.  434),  states  the  Commons' 
amendment  in  precisely  the  opposite  way  ;  bul  the  above  is  the 
Lccount  in  the  Journals  of  the  House,  and  Burnet's  statement  renders 
the  argument  of  the  Lords  unintelligible. 


BASIS    OF    THE    CABINET   SYSTEM  11/ 

offices — i.e.,  offices  created  after  the  date  of  the  Act 
—and  to  pensioners.  They  also  proposed  to  repeal 
entirely  the  clause  of  the  Act  of  Settlement  which  re- 
quired the  discussion  of  business  in  full  Privy  Council 
and  the  signature  of  resolutions,  on  the  ground 
that  no  one  would  care  to  be  a  Privy  Councillor  on 
those  terms.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  discussion 
between  the  Houses,  but,  ultimately,  the  Lords'  pro- 
posals were  adopted,  with  the  additional  proviso  that, 
though  all  acceptance  of  office  should  vacate  seats, 
yet  that  the  occupants  of  old  offices  should  be  capable 
of  re-election. 

Thus  Parliament  arrived  at  the  famous  compro- 
mise, upon  which  the  working  of  the  Cabinet  System 
rests  at  the  present  day.  The  abolition  of  the 
Privy  Council  clause  rendered  secret  meetings  of 
the  Cabinet  possible,  and  reduced  the  full  Privy 
Council  to  a  merely  formal  position.  The  partial 
restriction  on  the  presence  of  officials  in  the  House 
of  Commons  prevented  the  unlimited  acquisition  of 
influence  in  that  House  by  a  Government  willing  to 
create  new  offices  ;  and  prepared  the  way  for  that 
modern  system  by  which,  undisturbed  by  the  Minis- 
terial changes,  the  vast  majority  of  Government 
officials  enjoy  permanent  tenure  of  their  posts.  The 
re-election  clause,  though  apparently  important,  has 
never  been  of  any  real  value  ;  for  a  Government  with 
a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  can  always 
find  a  seat  for  a  rejected  official,  and  a  Government 
in  a  minority  has  either  to  resign  or  to  appeal  to  the 
constituencies. 

Were  it  not  for  one  fact,  we  could  hardly  hesitate 


I  l8  S/GNS    OF   CHANGE 

to  assign  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  Security  as  the 
date  which  finally  established  the  supremacy  of  the 
Cabinet  System.  By  tin's  enactment  the  last  legal 
obstacle  to  the  introduction  of  that  system  was 
removed,  and  the  machinery  of  which  the  system 
is  at  the  present  day  worked  was  brought  into 
existence.  But  the  curious  fact  remains,  that  in 
all  the  contemporary  records  of  the  period  there 
is  scarcely  a  hint  that  the  significance  of  the  change 
was  understood.  We  have  seen  (p.  116,  note  i)  that 
even  so  intelligent  a  critic  as  Burnet  grossly  mistook 
the  character  of  the  Commons'  amendments,  lie 
could  hardly  have  done  this  if  a  definite  policy  had 
been  involved  in  the  measure;  for  Burnet  himself  took 
part  in  the  debates  in  the  I  louse  of  Lords.  There  is, 
indeed,  just  one  passage  in  the  reasons  assigned  by 
the  Lords,  which  seems  to  hint  at  a  foresight  of  con- 
sequences. Their  lordships  allege  that  "  had  these 
privileged  officers  been  excepted  for  the  necessary 
information  of  the  House  (of  Commons),  one  or  two 
of  a  sort,  or  of  each  Commission,  might  have  been 
sufficient."  This  passage  certainly  points  to  that  con- 
nection between  the  Ministry  and  the  House  of 
Commons  which  is  one  striking"  feature  of  the  Cabinet 
System  ;  but  it  does  not  recognise  (and,  indeed,  the 
I  louse  of  Lords  would  certainly  have  declined  to 
admit)  that  the  real  centre  of  administration  must 
rest  in  the  Lower  House.  .And,  for  the  most  part, 
the  arguments  used  in  this  famous  discussion,  so  far 
as  they  survive,  are  of  a  purely  personal  and  partisan 
type.  Looked  at  from  the  standpoint  of  historical 
criticism,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  statesmen 


AN    UNCONSCIOUS    DEVELOPMENT  I  1 9 

of  1705-6  realised  that  they  were  preparing  the  way 
for  a  profound  revolution  in  the  system  of  govern- 
ment. And  yet  they  were,  in  truth,  entering  upon  a 
course,  which  was  to  influence  the  future  of  politics 
throughout  the  civilised  world. 


V 

THE   SYSTEM    OF    WALPOLE 

The  man  whose  name  will  be  for  ever  associated 
with  the  establishment  of  the  Cabinet  System  in 
England  was  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  He  joined  the 
Ministry1  precisely  at  the  date  when,  by  the  dis- 
missal of  Harley  and  St.  John,  the  first  genuinely 
Whig  Cabinet  was  formed,  and  the  possibility  of 
Cabinet  government  established.  When  he  quitted 
public  life,  thirty-four  years  later,  having  held  high 
office  dining  most  of  the  intervening  period,  the 
Cabinet  System  had  become,  mainly  through  his 
agency,  a  part  of   the  Constitution. 

The  qualities  which  led  to  Walpole's  rapid  pro- 
motion and  success  are  in  themselves  suggestive  of 
a  changed  order  of  things.  Hitherto  the  chief  re- 
commendations to  a  political  career  had  been  Court 
favour,  the  possession  of  great  hereditary  rank  and 
wealth,  and,  in  a  few  eases,  of  which  that  of  Somers 
is    the    most     conspicuous,    striking    political     talent. 

1   He  had  been  appointed  a  membei  oi  the  Council  of  Prince  George 

of  Denmark,  Lord  High  Admiral,  in  1705  ;   but  the   post  was  "1"  small 

importance. 

120 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &  Cockerel!. 

SIR   ROBERT   WALPOLE   (1676-1745). 

Portrait  by  J.  B.  Van  Loo,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


122  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

Walpole  had  none  of  these.  In  spite  of  his  address, 
he  was  never  really  a  Court  favourite.  His  manners 
were  coarse  and  abrupt,  and  he  was  too  good  a  Whig 
to  be  personally  acceptable  to  rulers  who  still  believed 
in  the  divine  sanction  of  prerogative.  Though  his 
birth  was  respectable,  and  his  income  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  live  hospitably,  he  could  make  no 
claim  to  rank  with  great  noblemen  whose  ancestors 
had  been  for  generations  prominent  figures  in  the 
State,  and  whose  houses  rivalled  the  palaces  of 
kings.  Though  a  ready  and  powerful  debater,  he 
had  none  of  the  eloquence  which  imposes  respect, 
even  on  opponents,  and  none  of  the  commanding 
intellect  which  compels  the  reluctant  admiration  of 
the  world. 

But  he  had  gifts  and  qualities  more  useful  for 
the  part  which  he  was  called  upon  to  play. 
Himself  a  country  gentleman  of  moderate  estate, 
passionately  fond  of  all  that  made  the  chief  delight 
of  the  country  gentleman  of  his  time — the  chase,  the 
preservation  of  game,  the  exercise  of  rough  hospi- 
tality— he  was  specially  fitted  to  win  his  way  with  a 
class  whose  avowed  faithfulness  to  the  exiled  Mouse 
of  Stuart  made  one  of  the  chief  political  dangers  of 
his  da)-.  Loyally  attached  to  the  (  hurch  of  England, 
and  free  from  all  suspicion  of  unorthodox}',  he  was 
equally  fitted  to  deal  with  another  grave  problem  of 
the  situation,  the  secret  disaffection  of  the  clergy, 
whose  dislike  of  the  fervent  Catholicism,  of  the 
Stuarts  alone  rendered  the  acceptance  of  the  House 
of  Hanover  possible.  The  devoted  adherents  of  the 
Church,  Tories  though  they  were,  looked  with  an  eye 


CHARACTER    OF    WALPOLE  123 

of  tolerance  on  the  Minister  who  was  known  to  have 
disliked    the    prosecution    of    Sacheverel,    and    who 
steadily  refused,  even  at  the  request  of  a  Queen,  to 
read   Butler's  "Analogy,"  on   the   ground   that   "his 
religion  was  fixed,  and  he  neither  wished  to  change 
nor  improve  it."     The  son-in-law  of  a  Lord   Mayor 
of  London,  he  won  his  way  easily  among  the  rapidly 
rising  class   of  merchants,  whose   support  proved   of 
such  inestimable  value  to  an  unpopular  Government 
in  the  days  of  the  first  two  Georges,  and   from  whom 
he  doubtless  learnt  those  sound  principles  of  finance, 
which  enabled   him  to  rescue  the  country  from  the 
despair  of  the  South   Sea   Bubble,  and   to  introduce 
order  and    practical  sense   into   an  antiquated   fiscal 
system.      Utterly  unscrupulous  in  details,  he  was  yet 
rigidly  faithful   in  his  allegiance  to  his  party,  whose 
cause    he    had    championed    with    ardour    from    his 
college    days.      He    enjoyed,    therefore,    the    double 
advantage  of  being  able  to  use  coarse   instruments, 
while    at    the    same    time    setting    an    example    of 
consistency  which  was  perhaps,  in  the  circumstances, 
the  highest  attainable  form  of  political  honest}-,  and 
which    won    him    the    respect,   even  of  his  enemies. 
"  Robin  and   I   are  two  honest  men,"  said   the  stout 
old    Jacobite    leader,    Shippen.      "  He    is     for     King 
George,  and    I    am   for  King  James  ;  but  these  men 
with    long   cravats   only   desire   places,   either   under 
Kins  George  or    King    lames."     In   other  words,   it 
may    be     fairly    claimed    for    Walpole,    that,    if    his 
example    did    not    favour    personal   purity,    at    least 
it  encouraged    political    honesty.      Finally,   Walpole 
had   the  inestimable   advantage  of   being    free    from 


124  7///';   SYSTEM  OF    WAl 

political  vanity.  He  never  attempted  to  associate 
his  name  with  great  achievements  at  the  expense 
of  the  nation.  The  gravest  charge  brought  by 
history  against  Marlborough  is,  that  he  deliberately 

prolonged  a  costly  and  bloody  war  to  enhance  his 
own  glory.  Walpole  was  incapable  of  such  a  crime. 
Always  seeking  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and 
setting  the  practical  above  the  ideal,  he  was  content 
to  govern  the  country  in  the  quietest  possible  way,  to 
heal  old  sores,  and  to  wink  very  hard  at  offences 
which  did  not  really  endanger  the  security  of  the 
State.  .And  it  happened  that  this  attitude  was 
exactly  what  was  needed  at  the  time.  If  St.  John 
had  been  a  Whig,  and  Walpole  a  Jacobite,  it  is  long 
odds  that  the  Revolution  Settlement  would  have 
been  destroyed,  and  the  peace  of  the  nation  ruined. 
As  it  was,  the  peace  of  the  nation  was  maintained, 
and  the  Jacobite  cause  destroyed.  Happily  for 
England,  Walpole's  vanity  took  an  entirely  harmless 
form.     He  believed  himself  to  be  a  lady-killer. 

It  was,  however,  several  years  before  Walpole 
obtained  that  commanding  position  in  politics  which 
entitles  us  to  regard  him  as  the  mainspring  of  political 
action  in  England  ;  and  a  brief  sketch  of  the  interval 
will  serve  to  bring  his  work  into  clearer  relief. 

The  Whig  victory  of  1705  was  followed  by  a 
brilliant  achievement  in  politics — no  less  than  the 
Union  between  England  and  Scotland.  The  scope 
of  this  book  does  not  permit  of  an  adequate  account 
of  that  notable  event.  It  must  be  sufficient  to  say 
that,  after  having  been  the  dream  of  ambitious  states- 
men since  the  days  of  Edward  I.,  its  accomplishment 


UNION    WITH  SCOTLAND  1 25 

had  become  a  practical  necessity  with  the  accession 
of  the  House  of  Stuart  to  the  English  throne,  in  the 
person  of  James,  the  Sixth  of  Scotland  and  First  of 
England.  That  the  two  countries  under  different 
monarchs  should  be  jealous  rivals,  possibly  enemies, 
was  bad  enough.  That,  whilst  nominally  obeying  the 
same  ruler,  they  should  be  severed  by  distrust  and 
commercial  jealousy,  was  a  standing  danger  to  the 
very  existence  of  the  State.  Especially  was  this  the 
case  when  the  expected  change  of  dynasty,  on  the 
death  of  Anne,  threatened  to  awaken  actual  hostility, 
through  the  possible  preference  of  the  Scots  for  the 
exiled  House.  We  have  seen  how  the  mismanage- 
ment of  the  Queen's  Tory  Ministers  threatened  to 
defeat  the  dying  hopes  of  William.  So  acute  was  the 
crisis  that,  even  before  the  elections  of  1705,  the  Whig 
majority  in  the  Lords  succeeded  in  passing  drastic 
resolutions,  to  the  effect  that,  if  the  Union  were  not 
completed  by  Christmas  in  that  year,  all  Scotchmen 
(with  a  few  exceptions)  should  be  thereafter  regarded 
as  aliens,  all  importation  of  Scottish  cattle  and  goods 
into  England  and  export  of  English  wool  into  Scot- 
land prohibited,  and  all  Scottish  vessels  trading  to 
France  captured  as  prize  of  war.  Owing  to  quarrels 
between  the  Houses,  the  Lords'  Bill  founded  on  these 
resolutions  was  laid  aside  by  the  Commons  ;  but  an 
almost  equally  drastic  measure,  brought  forward  in 
the  Lower  House,  received  the  royal  assent  in  1705. 

It  was  now  absolutely  necessary  that  something 
should  be  done  to  end  the  strain  ;  and  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  the  new  Ministry,  after  the  Whig  triumph 
at  the  elections,  was  to  secure  the  appointment  of  a 


126  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

new  set  of  Commissioners  to  discuss  the  terms  of 
Union.  A  happy  augury  of  success  was  the  agree- 
ment of  both  political  parties  to  the  repeal  of  the 
hostile  legislation  of  the  previous  session,  which  the 
Scots  naturally  regarded  as  rendering  a  friendly  dis- 
cussion impossible.  On  April  10,  1706,  after  the 
prorogation  of  Parliament,  the  new  Commissioners 
were  formally  appointed.  Their  meetings,  more 
than  once  graced  by  the  presence  of  the  Queen 
herself,  commenced  a  week  later,  and  were  con- 
cluded before  the  end  of  July.  Very  wisely,  it 
was  arranged  that  the  Articles  agreed  on  should 
be  first  submitted  to  the  Scottish  Parliament,  so 
as  to  avoid  all  appearance  of  pressure  by  the 
stronger  country.  The  Scottish  Parliament  met  on 
October  3,  1706,  and,  in  spite  of  strenuous  opposition 
by  many  members,  the  Act  of  Ratification  was  finally 
passed,  by  a  majority  of  I  10  against  69,  on  January 
16,  1707  ;  a  special  Act  for  the  security  of  the  Presby- 
terian Establishment  having  previously  been  touched 
by  the  royal  sceptre.  A  fortnight  later  the  Articles 
were  presented  to  the  English  Parliament,  and,  after 
a  corresponding  provision  had  been  made  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  Episcopal  Establishment  in 
England,  finally  approved  by  statute  on  the  6th  of 
March. 

The  terms  of  the  Union  are  so  well  known,  and  so 
readily  accessible,  that  the  very  briefest  summary  of 
them  may  here  suffice.  The  Union  effected  was  for 
legislative  and  administrative  purposes  only,  leaving 
matters  of  judicature  and  religion  absolutely 
unaffected.      It    is   true   that,    by    the    theory    of   the 


TERMS   OF   THE    UNION  12/ 

Constitution  (not,  perhaps,  so  well  understood  then  as 
now)  the  sovereign  power  of  legislation  claimed  by 
the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  legally  carried  with 
it  the  power  to  alter  judicial,  and  even  ecclesiastical, 
arrangements  in  either  country.  But  it  was  well 
understood  at  the  time  that  this  power  would  not  be 
exercised  against  the  will  of  the  country  affected  ; 
and,  with  one  or  two  notable  exceptions,1  the  under- 
standing has  been  honourably  maintained.  In  theory 
also,  the  power  to  appoint  the  Scottish  judges  passed 
to  the  Ministry  in  London  ;  but,  except  in  the  case 
of  the  new  Court  of  Exchequer,  rendered  necessary 
by  the  fiscal  union  of  the  two  countries,  the  old 
system  remained,  judges  in  Scotland,  as  before  the 
Union,  being  appointed  from  the  ranks  of  the  Scottish 
bar.2  Further  than  this,  the  whole  systems  of  private 
law,  or  law  affecting  the  ordinary  dealings  of  citizen 
with  citizen,  remain  distinct,  for  the  most  part,  to  this 
day  in  the  two  countries,  such  legislative  changes  as 
have  been  made  having  been  sanctioned  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  country  affected.3  But  the  whole 
conduct  of  the  daily  business  of  politics  in  Scotland 
passed,  with  the  Union,  from   Edinburgh  to  London  ; 


1  A  conspicuous  example  was  the  restoration  of  private  patronage  in 
the  Kirk  in  1 71 2,  one  of  the  most  mischievous  measures  of  the  Tory 
Ministry  which  came  into  office  in  1710.  The  abolition  of  the  heritable 
jurisdictions  in  1746,  though  expressly  forbidden  by  the  Union,  was 
rendered  necessary  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time. 

2  The  Scottish  Chancellor  disappeared;  but  in  Scotland  the 
Chancellor  was  not  a  judicial  officer. 

3  The  theoretical  unity  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  rule,  that  every  Act 
of  the  British  Parliament  is  binding  in  Scotland,  unless  Scotland  is 
expressly  exempted.      But  exemptions  are  frequent. 


128  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

the  Scottish  officers  of  State  virtually  disappeared1  ; 
the  military  and  fiscal  systems  of  the  two  countries 
were  united  ;  the  two  Crowns  became  one  ;  even  the 
creation  of  new  Scottish  peers  was  forbidden  ;  and, 
perhaps  most  important  of  all,  every  commercial 
barrier  and  restriction  between  England  and  Scotland 
was  absolutely  broken  down,  every  Scotchman 
became  eligible  for  civil  office  throughout  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies,  and  a  uniform  standard 
of  weights,  measures,  and  coinage  ran  throughout  the 
two  countries. 

Finally,  in  the  legislature  itself,  Scotland  became 
represented  by  sixteen  peers,  elected  by  their  fellow- 
peers  to  serve  in  each  Parliament,  and  by  forty-five 
commoners.  The  position  of  the  Article  containing 
this  provision  is  significant.  Instead  of  appearing,  as 
we  should  expect,  at  the  very  head  of  the  Treaty,  it 
ranks  only  twenty-second  of  the  twenty-five  clauses 
of  which  the  Act  is  composed.  The  fact  is,  that 
the  Parliament  of  Scotland  had  never  attained,  in  Scot- 
land itself,  anything  like  the  dignity  and  importance 
achieved  by  its  prototype  in  England.  To  the  great 
mass  of  Scotchmen,  it  was  inferior  in  interest 
to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk  ;  and  the 
arrangement  for  its  absorption  excited  comparatively 
little  feeling.  In  one  sense,  no  doubt,  this  was  a 
fortunate  thing.  Had  any  fervour  of  national 
enthusiasm  been  associated  with  the  Scottish 
Parliament,    the     Union    could     hardly    have    been 

'  (  >ne  curious  result  of  this  fact  was  that  the  Lord  Advocate  (the 
equivalent  of  tin-  English  Attorney-General)  became,  in  effect. 
Minister  for  Scotland  in  the  central  administration. 


VICTORIES    OF  MARLBOROUGH  I  29 

accomplished.  But,  in  another  respect,  its  con- 
sequences were  of  less  indisputable  advantage.  The 
new  Scottish  members  at  Westminster  found  them- 
selves in  a  curious  position.  Their  own  countrymen 
took  little  account  of  their  doings,  of  which  indeed 
they  knew  nothing.  The  distinction  of  Whig  and 
Tory  was  of  small  importance  north  of  the  Tweed,  or 
at  least  it  had  there  a  different  meaning  from  that 
which  it  conveyed  in  the  south.  The  members  them- 
selves were  equally  indifferent  to  the  great  bulk  of 
the  business  which  came  before  the  British  Parlia- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  the  Ministry  of  the  day 
was  extremely  anxious  to  secure  their  votes,  and 
willing  to  pay  handsomely  for  them.  Especially  was 
it  willing  to  pay  for  them  with  the  minor  Scottish 
patronage,  which  the  extinction  of  the  Scottish 
Executive  had  placed  at  its  disposal.  The  bargain 
was  soon  struck  ;  and  it  is  not  a  little  curious  that  so 
few  historians  have  perceived  the  importance  of  the 
Union  in  thus  assisting  the  development  of  the 
Cabinet  System. 

The  great  civil  achievement  of  the  Union  was 
followed  by  the  great  military  achievements  of 
Oudenarde  and  Malplaquet,  and  the  capture  of  Lille, 
Mons,  and  Minorca  ;  while  the  power  of  the  Whigs 
rose  to  its  zenith  with  the  appointment  of  Somers  as 
President  of  the  Council.  But,  in  their  success,  the 
Government  became  reckless.  Louis  XIV.,  now 
thoroughly  alarmed,  made  handsome  offers  of  peace  ; 
but  they  were  haughtily  rejected  by  the  Cabinet, 
except  upon  the  terms  that  Louis  should  actively  aid 
in  deposing   his   own   grandson    from   the   throne  of 

10 


130  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

Spain.  With  the  full  support  of  his  subjects,  the 
French  King  refused  the  humiliating  condition,  and 
the  costly  war  went  on.  Marlborough  demanded  to 
be  made  Captain-General  for  life  of  the  British  forces. 
He  had  twice  refused  the  lucrative  post  of  Governor 
of  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  offered  him  by  the 
Emperor,  for  fear  that  the  jealous)-  of  the  Allies 
should  weaken  their  support.  But,  like  many  other 
men,  he  thought  that  his  patriotism  deserved  a  sub- 
stantial reward  ;  and  the  Captain-Generalship  seemed 
to  him  to  be  only  his  due.  The  demand,  however, 
raised  a  fierce  outburst  of  anger  in  England.  Men 
spoke  openly  of  the  new  Cromwell  ;  and  pertinently 
asked  whether  the  Government  regarded  the  war  as  a 
permanent  institution.  The  Queen,  now  falling  under 
the  rival  influence  of  Mrs.  Masham,  sternly  refused 
the  request.  Finally,  the  Ministry  made  a  disastrous 
mistake  in  directing  the  impeachment  of  Dr. 
Sacheverel,  a  divine  accused  of  printing  political 
sermons  in  which  the  principles  of  the  Revolution 
were  condemned.  Walpole  showed  his  sound  sense 
by  opposing  the  project  in  secret  ;  but  he  remained 
faithful  to  his  party,  and  even  took  an  active  share  in 
the  impeachment.  The  issue  fell  out  as  he  had  fore- 
told. As  the  trial  progressed,  public  feeling  rose 
higher  and  higher.  Sacheverel  became  the  idol  of 
the  hour.  The  Queen  let  it  be  seen  that  she  cordially 
disapproved  of  the  action  of  her  Ministers;  as  the  pro- 
ceedings went  on,  it  became  more  and  more  difficult 
for  the  Government  managers  to  avoid  making  use 
of  arguments  always  unacceptable  to  the  ears  of 
authority,  and  likely,  unless  handled  with  the  strictest 


TRIAL   OF  SACHEVEREL  I  3  I 

care,  to  recoil  on  the  heads  of  those  who  used  them. 
The  whole  organising  machinery  of  the  High  Church 
party  was  brought  to  bear  in  favour  of  the  accused. 
Ultimately,  Sacheverel  was  found  guilty  by  a  majority 
of  17  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  but  the  verdict  was 
reduced  to  an  absurdity  by  the  lightness  of  the  sen- 
tence pronounced  upon  him,  which  was  merely  that 
one  of  his  offending  sermons  should  be  burnt  in 
the  presence  of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Sheriffs,  and 
that  he  should  be  suspended  from  preaching  for  three 
years.  Such  a  sentence  was  virtually  an  acquittal, 
and  was  treated  as  such.  The  country  went  wild 
with  delight.  The  Queen,  emboldened  by  the 
unpopularity  of  the  Ministers,  offered  the  staff  and 
key  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  Shrewsbury,  who, 
though  a  Whig,  had  voted  in  favour  of  Sacheverel's 
acquittal.  But  the  manner  of  the  appointment  was 
more  important  than  its  matter.  Godolphin  and  his 
colleagues  knew  nothing  of  the  step  till  it  was 
virtually  taken.  The  Queen  had,  in  fact,  as  was  said 
at  the  beginning  of  the  last  chapter,  exercised  her 
undoubted  right  of  appealing  from  her  Ministers  to 
the  country.  Emboldened  by  her  success,  she  then,  in 
spite  of  the  earnest  remonstrances  of  Godolphin  and 
Marlborough,  dismissed  Sunderland  from  the  secre- 
taryship of  State,  and  appointed  Lord  Dartmouth, 
a  High  Church  Tory,  in  his  place.  A  month  later, 
in  August,  1710,  a  clean  sweep  was  made,  Godolphin, 
Somers,  Cowper,1  Devonshire,  Wharton,  and  Derby 
being    replaced    by     Harley,     Rochester,     Harcourt, 

1  The  Queen  endeavoured  to  induce  Cowper  to  remain  in  office,  but 
he  steadily  reiuscd. 


132  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

Buckingham,  Ormond,  and  Berkeley,  while  St.  John 
was  made  Secretary  of  State  in  the  place  of  Robert 
Boyle.  The  new  Ministers  demanded  a  dissolution  ; 
and  the  event  proved  that  the  Queen  had  rightly 
judged  the  temper  of  the  nation.  The  Tories  returned 
with  a  strong  majority,  which  they  at  once  improved 
by  procuring  the  rejection  of  all  Whigs  whose  elec- 
tions could  be  disputed.  For  the  second  time  Walpole 
had  shown  his  sound  sense  by  suggesting,  at  the 
commencement  of  these  changes,  an  united  resigna- 
tion of  the  Ministry  ;  but,  when  his  advice  was 
neglected,  he  again  proved  his  loyalty  to  his  party 
by  obstinately  refusing  the  advances  of  Ilarley,  who 
made  the  most  flattering  offers  to  win  him  over.  By 
this  conduct  he  incurred  the  deep  resentment  of  the 
new  Ministers,  who  revenged  themselves  by  getting 
him  condemned  on  a  charge  of  corruption.  The 
incident,  however,  in  no  way  detracted  from 
Walpole's  reputation,  being  regarded  as  a  pure  piece 
of  party  spite. 

The  history  of  the  Ton-  Cabinet  of  17 10  almost 
exactly  repeated  the  history  of  its  predecessor. 
Elated  by  their  victory,  rendered  popular  by  the 
attempted  assassination  of  Ilarley,  and  later  by  the 
conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  fired  by  the 
enthusiastic  support  of  the  High  Church  party,  the 
Ministers  boldly  launched  upon  a  career  of  reaction 
and  revenge.  Marlborough,  despite  his  great  services, 
was  accused  of  peculation,  and  abruptly  dismissed 
from  his  offices,  with  every  circumstance  of  ignominy. 
The  Occasional  Conformity  Bill  (p.  105)  was  at  length 
passed.     The    mischievous    measure  which   restored 


HENRY    ST.   JOHN    (BOLINGBROKE)    (1678-J.751). 

Portrait  bv  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller. 


134  THE   SYSTEM   OF    \\  A I  POLE 

private  patronage  in  Scotland  became  law.  The 
growing  strength  of  the  Press  was  crushed  by  a 
Stamp  Act,  and  the  iniquitous  Schism  Act  of  1714 
riveted  still  firmer  the  fetters  of  the  Nonconformists, 
by  placing  the  whole  of  the  education  of  the  country 
in  the  hands  of  the  bishops.1  The  one  great  achieve- 
ment of  the  Ministry,  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  was 
stained  by  circumstances  of  treachery,  and  by  an 
extreme,  if  justifiable,  stretch  of  the  prerogative.  The 
negotiations  were  carried  on  behind  the  backs  of  the 
Allies,  and  the  English  troops  in  the  field  were  com- 
pelled, to  their  great  indignation,  to  practise  some- 
thing like  actual  treachery  towards  their  comrades. 
To  secure  a  majority  in  the  Lords,  the  Queen  was 
induced  to  create  a  batch  of  twelve  new  peers. 
Finally,  the  Ministers,  or  at  least  some  of  them, 
entered  into  negotiations  with  the  Pretender,  to  upset 
the  arrangements  of  the  Act  of  Settlement.  But  the 
country  was  not  prepared  for  such  a  step.  The 
General  Election  of  17 13,  in  which  the  Whigs  made 
considerable  gains,  had  already  weakened  the  Govern- 
ment. It  was  followed  by  an  open  rupture  between 
llarley  and  St.  John  ;  and,  though  the  superior 
abilities  of  the  latter  enabled  him  to  procure  the  dis- 
missal of  his  rival,  the  vacant  post  was,  in  the  con- 
fusion attendant  upon  the  dying  hours  of  the  Queen, 
conferred  upon  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  in  whose 
hands  the  Protestant  succession  was  safe.     When  the 

1  Tin'  Schism  Act  required,  on  pain  of  imprisonment,  t hat  every 
schoolmaster  should  obtain  a  licence  from  a  bishop,  should  conform  to 
the  Anglican  liturgy,  and  take  the  sacrament  according  to  the  rites  of 
the  Established  Church. 


INDUSTRY  AND   COMMERCE  1 35 

paper  on  which,  pursuant  to  the  Act  of  Security 
(p.  1 14),  the  Elector  of  I  lanover  had  written  the  names 
of  his  representatives,  was  opened,  it  was  found  to 
contain  a  great  majority  of  Whig  nominations.  The 
elections  which  followed  confirmed  the  choice  of  the 
new  King,  the  Whigs  securing  a  great  majority.  To 
avoid  impeachment,  Bolingbroke  and  Ormond  fled 
over  sea  ;  and  the  Tory  party  went  into  a  political 
banishment  of  nearly  half  a  century. 

The  period  which  follows,  dull  as  it  proverbially 
is,  and  barren  of  startling  events,  is  really  of  vital 
importance  in  the  history  of  the  British  nation.  In 
it  were  laid  the  foundations  of  that  world-wide 
commerce,  which  is  to-day  the  economic  basis  of 
the  Empire's  greatness.  The  East  India  Company, 
just  a  hundred  years  old,  was  quietly  establishing 
itself  as  the  great  commercial  power  in  the  East, 
and  preparing  for  the  deadly  struggle  with  Holland 
and  France  which  the  latter  half  of  the  century  was 
to  witness.  British  enterprise  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere  was  undermining  the  already  tottering 
power  of  Spain.  The  slow  but  sure  development  of 
the  British  colonies  in  North  America  was  preparing 
the  way  for  the  gigantic  duel  with  France  for  the 
possession  of  that  great  continent.  The  fiscal  reforms 
of  Walpole  were  making  the  British  revenue  system, 
despite  its  Protectionist  character,  the  admiration  of 
the  world,  and  rendering  the  work  of  Adam  Smith 
possible.  In  the  potteries  and  ironworks  of  Stafford- 
shire, and  the  coal-mines  of  Northumberland,  was 
maturing  the  humble  seed  of  a  vast  industrial 
enterprise  which,  half  a  century  later,  was  to  shoot 


f  36  THE   S  1  S  77  1  /   t W    WALPOLE 

up  into  sucli  a  mighty  tree.  The  steady  improve- 
ment in  agriculture  and  other  rural  pursuits,  en- 
couraged by  an  almost  unbroken  series  of  rich 
harvests,  was  building  up  a  sturdy  peasantry, 
which  was  afterwards  to  give  its  life-blood  to  feed 
the  factory  system  of  the  North,  and  the  armies 
which  withstood  Napoleon.  The  gradual  healing 
of  deep-seated  divisions,  religious  and  political,  was 
welding  the  once  divided  country  into  a  great 
national  unit\-,  and  bringing  into  existence  the  hopes 
and  endeavours  that  led  to  the  great  outburst  of 
democratic  feeling  which  produced  the  Reform  Bill. 
Last,  but  not  least,  the  dull  political  intrigues  of 
those  commonplace  years  were  slowly  moulding  the 
administration  of  the  State  into  that  curious  form, 
which  was  the  answer  of  history  to  a  struggle  which 
had  been  the  secret  mainspring  of  English  political 
life  for  nearly  four  hundred  years — the  attempt  to 
reconcile  a  strong  government  with  popular  control. 
What  the  Civil  War,  with  its  heroes  and  its  blood- 
shed, had  been  unable  to  effect,  that  the  reigns  of 
two  foreign  kings,  with  their  petty  Court  intrigues 
and  sordid  politics,  were  destined  to  produce.  It  is 
to  this  aspect  of  the  period  that  we  turn  our  eyes. 

The  first  step  in  the  process  was  the  passing  of  the 
Septennial  Act  in  17 16.  The  ostensible  cause  of 
this  measure  was  the  excitement  under  which  the 
country  was  labouring,  after  the  Jacobite  rising  of  the 
previous  year,  and  the  prosecutions  which  naturally 
followed.  In  spite  of  the  defeat  of  Forster  at 
Preston,  and  the  flight  of  Mar  from  Sheriffmuir,  the 
Government  preferred  to  believe  that  the  Pretender's 


THE  SEPTENNIAL  ACT  I  37 

agents  were  busily  at  work,  and  that  an  election  in 
17 18  would  be  fatal  to  the  peace  of  the  country.  But 
the  real  motive  of  the  measure  was  the  enormous 
cost  attendant  upon  securing  a  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons  under  the  triennial  system. 
The  expenses  of  elections  had  grown  rapidly  with 
the  increased  importance  of  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
and  a  member  who  had  the  prospect  of  a  heavy 
drain  upon  his  purse  at  the  end  of  three  years 
naturally  asked  a  higher  subsidy  than  one  who 
could  count  upon  a  longer  tenure  of  his  seat.  The 
Hill  was,  of  course,  furiously  opposed  by  the  Jacobites, 
as  well  as  by  the  loyal  Tories,  who  hoped  for  a 
change  in  the  balance  of  the  parties.  Some  of  the 
independent  Whigs  were  also  a  good  deal  troubled 
by  the  constitutional  argument,  that  a  House  returned 
by  the  electors  for  a  period  of  three  years  could  not 
legally  prolong  its  own  existence  to  seven.  But  it 
was  pointed  out,  with  considerable  force,  that  a 
simple  repeal  of  the  Triennial  Act,  which  had  not 
been  in  existence  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  was 
unquestionably  within  the  power  of  Parliament,  and 
that  such  a  step  would  really  leave  it  in  the  power 
of  the  Crown  to  prolong  the  existence  of  the  House 
for  an  indefinite  period.  Moreover,  the  Commons 
could  not  help  feeling  that  the  new  measure  would 
give  them  an  immense  accession  of  strength  in 
their  rivalry  with  the  Lords.  Ultimately,  the  Bill 
passed  its  second  reading  in  the  Lower  House  by  a 
majority  of  122  ;  and  it  is  significant  of  the  state 
of  politics  that,  of  the  284  members  who  voted  in 
the  majority  on  that  occasion,  no  less  than  129  held 


I   ;S  THE    SYSTEM   OF    WAI.POl  I- 

office  under  the  down.  Curiously  enough,  Walpole, 
though  he  was  known  to  be  strongly  in  favour  of 
the  measure,  had  no  opportunity  of  speaking  in  its 
defence  ;  for,  though  he  held  the  offices  of  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
he  was  actually  obliged,  by  a  serious  illness,  to 
absent  himself  from  the  sittings  of  the   House. 

A  few  months  later  he   was   compelled   to  resign 
office  for   opposing   the   view  of  Stanhope,  who,  for 
the  first  few  years  of  the  new  reign,  acted  as  Prime 
.Minister;  and  he  cannot,  therefore,  be  credited  with 
the  authorship   of  the    next    important    step   in    the 
progress  of  the  new  system.    This  was  the  suspension 
of  the  Convocation  of  the    Province  of  Canterbury, 
which,    according    to    ancient    precedent,    assembled 
in    London    at    the    opening    of    each    session    of 
Parliament,    and,    though    by    no    means    equal     in 
importance     with    the    General     Assembly    of    the 
Scottish  Kirk,  yet  held   it  in   its  power  to   act   as  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  a  Parliament  to  whose  views  it 
was  opposed.     The    Upper    House    of  Convocation, 
consisting   of  the  bishops,  was  at  this  time  steadily 
Whig,   despite    Anne's    creations.      But    the    Lower 
House,    consisting    of    the    deans    and    archdeacons, 
together  with  a  large  number  of  proctors,  or  elected 
representatives  of  the  minor  clergy,  faithfully  reflected 
the  Tory  sympathies  of  the   Church,  and  served  as 
a  rallying-point  for  the  Opposition.     At  the  Refor- 
mation, however,  it  had  been  solemnly  acknowledged  l 
that  the  Convocations   could    not   meet   without  the 

1  25  Henry  VIII.  c.  17. 


CONVOCATION  SUSPENDED  1 39 

sanction  of  the  King's  writ  ;  and,  in  the  year  1717, 
the  Government  took  the  step  of  withholding  the 
necessary  formality — an  act  which  commenced  the 
virtual  suspension  of  the  independent  existence  of 
the  Church  for  a  period  of  130  years,  and  thus 
deprived  the  Opposition  of  a  formidable  weapon. 

But,  at  the  next  constitutional  crisis,  the  voice  of 
Walpole  is  already  heard.  In  1719  the  Ministers, 
serenely  confident  in  their  majority  in  the  Lords, 
and  dreading  a  possible  disturbance  of  the  balance, 
brought  in  a  Bill  to  restrict  the  future  creation  of 
peers.  The  numbers  of  the  English  peerage  were 
never  to  be  increased  beyond  six.  On  the  falling-inof 
vacancies,  patents  were  to  be  made  out  only  in  favour 
of  heirs  male.  The  sixteen  elected  peers  of  Scotland 
were  to  be  replaced  by  twenty-five  hereditary  peers. 
The  Bill  appealed  to  the  exclusive  feeling  of  the 
House  of  Lords ;  but  calm  observers  saw  that  it 
would,  if  carried,  be  fatal,  both  to  the  supremacy 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  to  the  Ministerial 
system.  An  hereditary  Chamber  is  always  slow  to 
respond  to  the  changes  of  national  feeling.  A  close 
hereditary  Chamber  is  certain  to  get  out  of  touch 
with  national  life.  Walpole,  though  not,  technically, 
in  Opposition,  acted  the  part  of  candid  friend,  and 
threw  his  whole  weight  against  the  Bill.  But  it  is 
noteworthy,  that  the  most  telling  argument  in  his 
powerful  speech  which,  practically,  decided  the  fate 
of  the  measure,  was  not  any  appeal  to  general 
principle.  He  asked,  pointedly,  whether  the  Whig 
country  gentlemen  and  merchants  would  really 
consent    to    a    scheme    which    would    deprive   them 


I4O  THE  SYSTEM  OF    WALPOLE 

and  their  children  for  ever  of  the  honourable 
ambition  of  ranking  among  the  peers  of  the  realm. 
The  argument  was  irresistible.  The  independent 
Whigs  came  over  in  a  body  ;  and  the  supporters  of 
the  Government  were  beaten  by  nearly  a  hundred 
votes.  The  result  was  to  confirm  Walpole's  ascen- 
dency in  the  House,  and  to  convince  Ministers  of  the 
folly  of  excluding  from  their  ranks  the  one  man  who 
could  assure  success  to  their  measures.  Walpole 
became  once  more  Paymaster  of  the  Forces  in 
1720. 

There  followed,  almost  immediately,  an  event 
which  raised  him  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of 
influence.  In  171 1  Harley  had  formed  the  South 
Sea  Company  as  a  rival  of  the  Whig  institution 
of  the  Bank  of  England.  The.  company  was 
nominally  commercial  ;  but  its  real  object  was  to 
aid  the  Tory  Government,  by  taking  over  part  of 
the  floating  National  Debt,  and  converting  it  into 
permanent  stock.  The  dividends  were,  of  course, 
to  be  paid  out  of  the  national  revenue,  and  this 
meant  that  the  management,  or,  at  least,  the  dis- 
tribution of  national  funds  was  handed  over  to 
the  Directors.  The  plan  had  succeeded,  for  there 
was  a  vast  amount  of  capital  seeking  permanent 
investment-,  and  the  creditors  of  the  Government 
had  no  wish  to  be  paid  off.  Hut  the  jealousy  felt 
by  the  Company  for  the  Hank,  and  the  party  feeling- 
involved,  led  the  two  institutions  to  enter  upon  a 
spirited  rivalry  for  the  assumption  of  future  debts. 
The  Directors  of  the  Bank  kept  their  heads  ;  but  their 
rivals  bid    wildly   for    business,   offering  extravagant 


NATIONAL   DEBT  141 

advantages  in  return  for  the  assignment  of  loans.  At 
length,  in  1720,  they  made  an  offer  to  take  over 
thirty  millions  of  the  nation's  liabilities,  to  reduce 
the  interest  payable  by  the  State  to  an  uniform  rate 
of  4  per  cent.,  to  subscribe  seven  and  a  half 
millions  for  the  public  service,  and  to  reduce  sub- 
stantially the  charges  of  management.  In  return 
for  these  magnificent  offers,  they  asked  only  for  the 
exclusive  monopoly  of  the  visionary  trade  in  Spanish 
waters,  assumed  to  have  been  secured  by  the  Treaty 
of  Utrecht,  but  really  rendered  nugatory  by  the 
renewed  hostility  of  Spain. 

In  spite  of  the  strong  opposition  of  Walpole,  the 
proposals  of  the  Company  were  accepted  by  Parlia- 
ment, on  the  recommendation  of  Aislabie,  who  had 
succeeded  him  in  the  chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer. 
It  was  manifest,  however,  that  the  Company  could 
only  carry  out  its  promises  with  the  help  of  an 
enormous  inflation  of  prices  ;  and,  to  the  disgust  of 
its  supporters,  the  expected  rise  of  the  price  of 
stock  did  not  at  first  take  place.  In  their  despair, 
the  Directors,  it  is  to  be  feared  with  the  connivance 
of  the  Government,  resorted  to  every  art  then 
invented  for  producing  what  would  now  be  called 
a  "  boom."  Amongst  other  rumours,  it  was  announced 
that  the  Spaniards  had  consented  to  take  Gibraltar 
and  Minorca  in  exchange  for  some  places  in  Peru, 
a  country  then  popularly  supposed  to  consist  exclu- 
sively of  gold  and  silver.  The  announcement  raised 
the  price  of  stock  to  200  per  cent,  premium,  at  which 
price  two  millions  of  the  original  issue  were  disposed 
of.     An    immediate    dividend    of   10   per   cent,    was 


142  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

promised  on  the  21st  of  April,  and  a  second  sub- 
scription was  negotiated  at  300  premium.  Tempted 
by  the  bait,  the  holders  of  Government  annuities 
exchanged  them  for  stock  of  the  Company  on 
absurdly  liberal  terms,  some  even  accepting  a 
nominal  eight  and  a  half  years'  purchase.  The 
fever  of  speculation  attacked  the  nation.  By  the 
end  of  May  the  ,£100  stock  had  risen  to  890  ;  before 
the  end  of  June  it  touched  1,000,  and,  even  at  that  price, 
purchasers  were  willing  to  take  over  subscriptions 
at  the  enormous  premium  of  2,000  per  cent.  Nor 
was  the  fever  by  any  means  confined  to  South  Sea 
stock.  The  summer  of  1720  witnessed  the  first  and 
greatest  outburst  of  mad  speculation  from  which  the 
country  has  suffered.  Companies  were  formed  for 
every  conceivable  object  —  for  assuring  seamen's 
wages,  for  effectually  settling  the  islands  of  Blanco 
and  Sal-Tartugas,  for  a  wheel  for  perpetual  motion, 
for  erecting  an  hospital  to  maintain  bastard  children, 
for  buying  and  fitting  out  ships  to  suppress  pirates, 
for  the  transmutation  of  quicksilver  into  a  malleable 
fine  metal,  for  erecting  salt-pans  in  Holy  Island,  for 
carrying  an  undertaking  of  great  advantage,  but 
nobody  to  know  what  it  is.  The  state  of  the  public 
mind  is  best  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  promoter 
of  the  last  ingenious  scheme  collected  two  thousand 
guineas  from  a  thousand  different  persDns  in  a 
single  morning  :  after  which,  needless  to  say,  he 
decamped.  The  South  Sea  Directors  somewhat 
foolishly  obtained  from  the  Lords  Justices,  who 
represented  the  King  in  his  absence  at  Hanover, 
an    order    for    the    suppression    of    many    of    these 


SOUTH   SEA    BUBBLE  1 43 

wildcat  companies  ;  and  the  irritation  thus  produced 
threatened  to  prick  the  South  Sea  Bubble  itself. 
But  by  dint  of  unscrupulous  manoeuvres  the 
Directors  succeeded,  at  the  end  of  August,  in  placing 
yet  another  million  of  their  capital  at  a  premium  of 
1,000  per  cent. 

The  crash  came  in  September,  owing  to  the  succes- 
sive failures  of  the  bankers  who  had  lent  money  on 
South  Sea  stock,  and  found  themselves  unable  to 
realise.  With  unanimous  voice  the  nation  called 
for  Walpole,  who  had  steadily  refused  to  take  any 
part  in  public  affairs  during  the  preceding  three 
months,  to  come  to  its  rescue.  With  great  difficulty 
he  succeeded  in  inducing  the  Bank  of  England  to 
take  over  a  part  of  the  Company's  liabilities  on 
reasonable  terms.  The  Government  agreed  to 
accept,  in  stock  of  the  Company,  one  half  of  the 
seven  and  a  half  millions  due  to  it,  and  to  abate 
the  other.  The  estates  of  the  Directors  were  con- 
fiscated to  satisfy  the  claims  of  stock-holders,  who 
ultimately  received  back  a  small  proportion  of  their 
losses.  After  a  long  investigation  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  several  of  the  Directors  were  sent  to  the 
Tower  ;  and  more  than  one  committed  suicide. 
Stanhope,  the  Prime  Minister,  though  he  was 
personally  innocent  of  corruption,  was  so  overcome 
by  the  revelations  affecting  his  colleagues,  that  he 
fell  ill  and  died.  There  was  but  one  man  possible  as 
his  successor,  and  that  man  was,  of  course,  Walpole. 
He  was  made  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  172 1,  his  brother- 
in-law  Townshend    returning  to  office  with  him  as 


144  THE   SYSTEM   OF    W A  LP  OLE 

Secretary  of  State.  All  men  felt,  however,  that  it 
was  Wal pole's  Government ;  and  from  that  clay  until 
j  742  Walpole  was  virtually  ruler  of  England. 
Incidentally,  it  may  be  remarked,  the  South  Sea 
Bubble  had  brought  him  two  valuable  prizes  beyond 
the  premiership.  In  the  early  stages  of  the  mania 
he  had  acted  as  the  financial  adviser  of  Princess 
Caroline,  the  wife  of  the  future  George  II.,  and  acted 
so  wisely,  that  he  secured  her  firm  friendship,  and 
commenced  that  curious  alliance  which  was  so 
valuable  to  him  in  later  years.  Moreover,  having 
delivered  his  faithful  testimony  against  the  South 
Sea  scheme,  and  seen  his  advice  neglected,  he  had 
not  scrupled  to  dabble  in  the  stock  on  his  own 
account,  and  to  clear  a  profit  of  1,000  per  cent. 
on  his  transactions.  The  result  was  to  raise  him 
from  the  position  of  an  ordinary  country  gentleman 
to  that  of  a  nobleman  with  a  great  estate. 

Starting  thus,  with  the  fairest  auspices,  Walpole, 
as  we  have  said,  retained  the  reins  of  office  for 
twenty-one  years.  What  were  the  chief  features 
of   his    remarkable  success  ? 

In  the  first  place,  he  had  the  Court  thoroughly  in 
hand.  It  was  inevitable  that  a  king  who,  like 
George  I.,  could  speak  no  English,  and  knew  nothing 
of  English  domestic  policy,  should  be  little  more  than 
a  figurehead  in  home  affairs.  Thinking  it  useless  to 
listen  to  discussions  in  a  tongue  which  he  did  not 
understand,  George  absented  himself  from  Cabinet 
meetings,  and  therefore  knew  nothing  of  current 
business.  Thus  the  personal  authority  of  William, 
and  the  wavering  attitude  of  Anne,  were  changed, 


walpole's  ascendency  at  count         145 

necessarily,  for  the  blind  acceptance  by  George  of  the 
advice  of  his  chief  Minister.  Who  that  Minister 
should  be  was  the  all-important  point.  We  have 
seen  that  the  state  of  affairs  on  the  death  of  Anne 
rendered  it  impossible  for  the  King  to  trust  a  Tory. 
At  first,  as  we  have  also  seen,  he  inclined  to  Stan- 
hope, who  was  a  soldier,  and  who  humoured  him 
about  Hanoverian  politics.  But,  after  the  South  Sea 
Bubble,  he  clung  firmly  to  Walpole,  who,  in  his  own 
words,  could  ''turn  stones  into  gold,"  I  and  who  had 
earned  his  undying  gratitude  by  the  masterly  way 
in  which  he  had  screened  the  Court  from  the  awkward 
revelations  of  the  South  Sea  Committee.  Once  only 
was  Wal pole's  power  in  serious  danger  from  the 
Court,  when,  on  the  sudden  death  of  George  I.,  his 
son,  who  disliked  Walpole  for  his  steady  devotion 
to  the  dead  monarch's  family  views,  expressed  his 
intention  of  making  Compton  his  chief  Minister. 
But  Compton  was  so  incapable  of  seizing  his  chance, 
that  he  actually  applied  to  Walpole  for  assistance  in 
drawing  up  the  new  King's  first  speech  to  the  Privy 
Council.  A  foolish  man  would  have  refused  with 
petulance.  Walpole  readily  consented,  and  took  care 
that  his  handwriting  should  appear  in  the  draft  sub- 
mitted to  the  King.  Then  the  new  Queen,  no  other 
than  that  Princess  Caroline  who  had  made  a  fortune 
through  Walpole's  advice  at  the  time  of  the  South 
Sea  Bubble,  pointed  out  to  her  husband  the  absurdity 
of  employing  a  Minister  who  could  not  perform  his 
simplest  duties  without  assistance  from  his  rival.    The 

1  Presumably  the  King  used  the  German  equivalent. 

II 


[46  THE   SYSTEM  OF    WALPOLE 

King  was  reluctantly  convinced,  and  Walpole  was 
sent  for.  lie  clenched  his  victory  by  undertaking  to 
secure  for  the  King  a  Civil  List  substantially  larger 
than  anything  that  Compton  had  dared  to  propose, 
and  made  good  his  promise.  He  was  immediately 
confirmed  in  his  old  office  ;  and  the  King"  loyally 
placed  at  his  disposal  the  vast  patronage  of  the 
Crown.  Only  one  reservation  was  made.  "As  for 
your  scoundrels  of  the  House  of  Commons,"  His 
Majesty  was  pleased  to  observe,  "  you  may  do  what 
you  please,  but  I  will  have  no  interference  with  my 
army."  The  stipulation  was  just,  and  Walpole 
accepted  it.  Even  the  death  of  Walpole's  faithful 
ally,'  Queen  Caroline,  in  1737,  made  no  difference. 
Walpole  transferred  his  friendship  to  the  King's 
mistress,  Madame  de  Walmoden,  and  held  the  Court 
as  securely  as  before.  Envious  rivals  poured  tales  of 
scandal  into  the  King's  ear.  George  listened  and 
laughed,  and  repeated  them  to  Walpole  himself.  To 
the  day  of  his  defeat,  in  1742,  and  even  after  it, 
Walpole  retained  the  unbroken  confidence  of  the 
Kim 


Equally  clear  in  Walpole's  system  was  his  deter- 
mination to  make  the  House  of  Commons  the  real 
centre  of  political  business.  He  was  the  first  leading 
Minister  since  the  Restoration  who  steadily  refused  a 
peerage  during  the  whole  of  his  tenure  of  office. 
Clarendon,  Danby,  the  Sunderlands,  Halifax,  Roches- 
ter, Godolphin,  Oxford,  Bolingbroke,  and  Stanhope, 
had  all  conducted  the  business  of  the  country  from 
the  Painted  Chamber.  Even  Montagu,  though  his 
influence  was   great,  and   though,  in  many  respects, 


MiS   FINANCIAL    MEASURES'  \\1 

he  anticipated  the  position  of  Walpole,  had  been 
overshadowed  by  Somers  and  Wharton,  both  of  them 
peers.  Rut  Walpole,  whose  Cabinets  bristled  with 
noble  lords,  was  always  indisputably  First  Minister, 
just  because  he,  and  he  alone,  could  lead  the  House 
of  Commons.  So  long  as  he  could  command  a 
majority  in  that  Mouse,  he  cared  not  a  rap  for  the 
intrigues  of  his  colleagues  in  Court  and  Cabinet.  The 
moment  he  was  beaten  in  the  Commons  he  resigned 
all  his  offices.  In  his  hands  the  spigot  of  taxation 
became  the  rudder  of  government ;  and  it  was  just 
during  his  long  period  of  power  that  the  Commons 
finally  achieved  the  supreme  control  in  matters  of 
finance.  Before  his  da)-,  the  chancellorship  of  the 
Exchequer,  historically  a  subordinate  post,  had  often 
been  held  by  a  peer.  Walpole  not  only  raised  it  to 
the  position  of  a  great  office  of  State,  but  set  the 
tradition,  never  afterwards  broken,  that  it  must  be 
held  by  a  member  of  the  Commons'  House.1  Almost 
the  only  measures  of  first-rate  importance  brought 
forward  during  his  lease  of  power  were  financial, 
measures.  The  import  duties  on  timber  were 
repealed  ;  and  the  worst  restrictions  imposed  by 
the  Navigation  Acts  judiciously  withdrawn,  to  the 
great  benefit  of  the  colonial  trade.  The  valuable 
silk  manufactures  of  Spitalfields  were  encouraged 
by  the  allowance  of  drawbacks  on  exported  silks. 
Smuggling    was    checked    by   a    reduction    to    order 

1  It  is  strictly  true  that  Lord  Mansfield,  on  two  occasions,  in  1757 
and  1767,  held  the  Exchequer  seal  for  a  few  months.  But  his  position 
Was  purely  pro  forma,  during  the  intervals  between  genuine 
appointments. 


i  )X  THE   SYSTEM  OF    WALPOLE 

and  simplicity  of  the  complicated  chaos  of  the 
Customs'  duties.  The  salt  tax  was  abolished,  to 
the  great  improvement  of  the  health  of  the  nation. 
The  famous  Excise  Bill  of  1733,  though  it  raised  a 
storm  of  factious  opposition  which  was  fatal  to  its 
success,  is  now  universally  admitted  to  have  been  a 
wise  measure.1  With  a  policy  of  this  nature,  the 
House  of  Commons  necessarily  became  the  centre 
of  business,  and  the  predominance  which  it  then 
acquired  has  never  since  been  lost.  In  fact,  the 
drawback  to  Walpole's  policy  was,  that  it  made  the 
House  of  Commons  too  powerful,  not  only  for  the 
King  and  the  peers,  but  for  the  nation.  Secured  in 
their  seats  by  the  Septennial  Act,  supreme  in  Parlia- 
ment through  the  increasing  importance  of  finance, 
unapproachable  by  intelligent  criticism  owing  to  the 
weakness  of  the  Press  and  the  secrecy  of  debates,  the 
Commons  succumbed  to  the  evils  of  irresponsible 
power,  and  gradually  assumed  that  position  of 
arrogant  privilege  which  was  afterwards  to  cost 
them  dear. 

Concerning  the  methods  by  which  Walpole  retained 
his  hold  over  the  body  which  he  had  made  so  power- 
ful, there  has  been  much  keen  dispute.  Due  weight 
must  be  given  to  natural  causes— to  the  determina- 
tion of  the  moneyed  interest  to  maintain  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty,  and  to  the  conviction  that 
Walpole  was  the  man  for  the  purpose.  Quite  apart 
from  all  questions  of  undue  influence,  Walpole  exer- 
cised the  authority  natural  to  a  man  who  had,  over 

1  For  an  excellent  summary  of  Walpole's  financial  policy,  see  A.  1>. 
Smiili  in  "Social  England,"  vol.  v.  pp.  1 17-130. 


HIS   ASCENDENCY   IN   PARLIAMENT  I49 

and  over  again,  showed  himself  to  be  the  incarnation 
of  common  sense,  and  who  had  rescued  his  country 
from  the  depths  of  financial  despair.  The  mildness 
of  his  government  won  him  friends  amongst  men  who 
were  tired  of  the  furious  polemics  which  had  exhausted 
the  energies  of  the  previous  generation.  He  could 
strike  when  he  chose,  as  the  rebels  of  171 5  found  to 
their  cost.  But  his  vindictiveness  was,  as  a  rule, 
reserved  for  traitors  in  his  own  camp  ;  and,  even  in 
such  cases,  it  took  what  was  then  regarded  as  the 
lenient  form  of  political  ostracism.  The  well-known 
anecdote  of  his  treatment  of  his  rival  Pulteney,  whom, 
at  the  moment  of  the  latter's  triumph,  he  persuaded 
to  commit  the  folly  of  accepting  a  peerage,  is 
characteristic  alike  of  his  humour,  and  of  his  con- 
viction that  the  real  power  in  politics  lay  with 
the  Commons.  "  I  have  turned  the  key  of  the 
closet  on  him,"  he  chuckled  in  triumph  ;  and  he  met 
his  discomfited  rival  on  the  floor  of  the  Upper  House 
with  the  cheerful  remark,  "  Well,  here  we  are,  my 
Lord,  two  of  the  least  important  men  in  England."  To 
his  open  foes,  Walpole  was  generous  beyond  anything 
hitherto  known.  He  allowed  the  proceedings  against 
Oxford  to  drop  ;  he  consented  to  Bolingbroke's 
return  to  England  ;  and  not  all  the  venom  of  the 
Craftsman  could  move  him  to  shed  blood.  Over 
and  over  again  he  spared  Jacobites  who  had  brought 
themselves  within  the  scope  of  the  treason  laws  ;  and 
he  had  his  reward  when,  in  the  crisis  of  1741,  Shippen, 
the  Jacobite  leader,  with  thirty-four  of  his  followers, 
refused  to  vote  against  the  tottering  Minister,  and 
thereby  prolonged  his  power  for  a  year.       That  he 


150  THE   SYSTEM   OF    WALPOLE 

resorted  to  other  and  less  honourable  means  to 
ensure  his  ascendency  is  probably  true,  although, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  the  evidence  does  not 
survive  in  a  direct  form.'  But  it  is  quite  certain, 
that  parliamentary  corruption  did  not  originate 
with  Walpole,  neither  did  it  reach  its  zenith 
in  his  time.  For  the  most  flagrant  examples  of 
individual  corruption,  we  must  go  back  to  the  days 
of  Charles  1 1,  and  William  III.  ;  for  the  most  reckless 
system  of  universal  jobbery,  we  must  look  forward  to 
the  daws  of  George  III.  When  Walpole  bribed,  he 
bribed  judiciously,  and  to  secure  what  he  believed 
(and  with  reason)  to  be  a  great  national  object, 
the  maintenance  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty  on  the 
throne.  His  evil  reputation  is,  probably,  quite  as 
much  due  to  his  outspoken  bluntness  and  freedom 
from  cant,  as  to  any  real  moral  obliquity. 

Finally,  if  Walpole  was  not  personally  vindictive, 
he  was  a  strict  disciplinarian  ;  so  strict,  in  fact,  that 
he  has  been  accused  of  violating  the  ethics  of  party 
allegiance,  to  gratify  his  personal  ambition.  But 
there  was  much  excuse  for  him.  He  came  into 
power  at  a  time  when  political  morality  was 
notoriously  low.  It  was,  as  yet,  no  uncommon 
thing  for  the  members  of  a  Ministry  to  conspire 
secretly  against  the  measures  of  the  Cabinet,  and 
even  to  oppose  them  openly  in  Parliament.  Walpole 
believed,  rightly   or   wrongly,  that    the   peace   of  the 

1  Walpole  himsell  is  said  to  have  admitted  in  the  House  of  Commons 
in  [731,  in  opposing  a  motion  for  a  return  ol  pensions  lirld  by  members 
of  the  House,  that  a  measure  of  (lie  kind  proposed  "  would  disfurnish 
half  the  counties  ami   boroughs  in   England  of  their  representatives 

(Pari.  Hist.  viii.  S57). 


A    DISCIPLINARY  V  I  5  I 

country  was  in  danger  from  the  Jacobites,  and  that 
the  only  way  to  meet  the  danger  was  by  presenting 
an  unbroken  Ministerial  front  to  the  enemy.  And, 
after  all,  no  one  could  dispute  that,  after  1721, 
Walpole,  and  not  Townshend  or  Carteret,  was  the 
choice  of  the  nation.  Carteret  was  a  brilliant  and 
wayward  genius,  whose  subsequent  career  amply 
justified  the  prudence  of  Walpole  in  depriving  him 
of  the  Seals  in  1723.  With  Townshend,  Walpole 
worked  amicably  for  nine  years  ;  and  it  was  natural 
that  the  older  man,  originally  the  patron,  should 
retire  on  finding  himself  reduced,  by  the  logic  of 
events,  to  a   second    place. 

But  it  was  not  in  the  Cabinet,so  muchas  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  that  Walpole's  discipline  showed  itself 
most  clearly.  It  has  been  remarked  as  strange,  that 
a  Prime  Minister  who  avowedly  rested  his  power  on 
the  Commons,  should  so  rarely  have  admitted  com- 
moners to  his  Ministries.  Walpole's  first  Cabinet 
was  composed  of  ten  peers  and  three  commoners  ; 
on  the  withdrawal  of  Carteret,  Pelham,  a  commoner, 
became  Secretary  at  War,  but  the  Seals  were  given 
to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  When  Townshend  with- 
drew in  1729,  his  place  was  taken  by  the  Earl  of 
Harrington,  and  Lord  Wilmington  became  Privy 
Seal.  When  the  Ministry  was  reconstituted  in  1731, 
the  Dukes  of  Dorset  and  Rutland  appeared  in  the 
Cabinet  ;  and  the  sole  representatives  of  the  Com- 
mons were  Walpole  himself  and  Pelham.  In  1733, 
Walpole  for  once  departed  from  his  rule,  by  appoint- 
ing Sir  Charles  Wager  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty 
with  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet.     But,  in    1739,  he  once 


152  THE   SYSTEM  OF    WALPOLE 

more  followed  his  own  precedent,  Lord  Ilervey, 
raised  to  the  House  of  Lords  in  his  father's  lifetime, 
being  made  Privy  Seal. 

In   truth,  however,  there  is  no  mystery  about  the 
matter.     Walpole  felt  that  a  colleague  in  the  Upper 
House  was  far  less  dangerous  than  a  colleague  in  the 
Lower.     Secure  in  his  own  power  of  managing  the 
Commons  unaided,  he  dreaded  the  possible  defection 
of  a  colleague  in  the  hour  of  trial.      His  noble  friends 
knew  well   enough  that  their    tenure    of  office    was 
dependent  on  his  favour.     He  made  a  terrible  sweep 
of  them  over  the  Excise  Bill   in    1733.     Bolton  and 
Clinton  were  deprived  of  their   Lord  Lieutenancies, 
Cobham  of  his  regiment,  Montrose  of  his  guardian- 
ship of  the  Great  Seal  of  Scotland,  Chesterfield  of  his 
post  of  Lord   Steward.      Even  Walpole   dared    not 
have  treated  influential  members  of  the  Lower  House 
in   that    way.      But   Newcastle's    increasing    borough 
influence    was  steadily   employed  on    behalf  of  the 
Government  ;  all  the   minor  pickings  of  office  were 
regularly  given  as  rewards  of  political  service  ;  again 
and  again  Walpole  procured  the  defeat  of   Pension 
Bills    that    he   might    keep    his    battalions    in    good 
order.     Even  Lord  Scarborough,  a  personal  favourite 
of  the  King,  and  the  holder  of  a  purely  formal  office, 
had  to  resign  because  he  could  not  agree  with  Wal- 
pole's  high-handed  action  in  the  dismissal  of  Bolton 
and  Cobham  ;  and  his  retirement  maybe  said  to  have 
definitely  marked  the  adoption   of   the    principle  of 
the  unity  of  the  Cabinet. 

It  is  easy  to  exaggerate  Walpole's  contribution  to 
the  development  of  the  new  system;  and  it  is,  indeed, 


IMPORTANCE    OF   THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS       1 53 

quite    possible,  that  Walpole   himself   had  no    com- 
prehensive scheme  of  political  organisation.     He  was 
above  all  things  an   opportunist,  a   man    whose   one 
object  was,  as   we  should  now  say,  to  carry  on  the 
business  of  the  country  from  day  to  day.     Neverthe- 
less, his  long  period  of  office  marks  the  appearance 
of  the  new  order.     In  place  of  the  personal  govern- 
ment   of  the    Crown,    limited    it    might    be,    by    the 
restraints  of  law,  and  the  necessity  for  winning  the 
general    sympathy    of    Parliament,    he    showed    the 
country  the  picture  of  a  simple  commoner  wielding 
more  than   royal   power,  by  virtue  of  the  support  of 
a  well-drilled    majority  in    the    House  of  Commons, 
resting,  nominally  at  the  least,    on  a  party  organi- 
sation   which    extended    throughout    the    kingdom. 
Walpole   wielded    more    than    royal    power,  because 
he  had  at  his  disposal,  not  merely   the    prerogative 
of    the    Crown,    but    the    legislative    and    financial 
authority  of  Parliament.     By  his  day  it  had  at  last 
come    to   be  understood,  that  the    one    thing    which 
could  with  certainty  stop  the  wheels  of  administration 
was  the  refusal  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  grant 
supplies.       By   making  it  his   first  care  to   secure  a 
majority  in  that  House,  Walpole  entrenched  himself 
in   an   impregnable  position.     On   the  one  hand,  he 
could  offer  to  the  Crown  and  the  Lords  many  good 
things,  if  they  would  fall  in  with  his  plans.     On  the 
other,    he    could    practically    checkmate    them     by 
refusing  to  ask   for  supplies.     But  he  knew  exactly 
the  limits  of  his  power,  and,  on  his  first  defeat  in  the 
Commons,  he  admitted  that  his  day  had  closed,  and 
retired  into  private  life. 


VI 

THE   SYSTEM    ON    ITS    TRIAL 

The  period  which  came  between  the  resignation  of 
Walpole  and  the  outbreak  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  is 
often  reckoned  the  dullest  in  the  annals  of  England. 
Even  the  long  and  pacific  Ministry  of  Walpole 
appears  interesting  by  comparison  ;  for,  in  the  great 
figure  of  the  Minister  himself,  the  student,  and  even 
the  casual  reader,  recognises  a  force  which  is  shaping 
the  course  of  history.  But  in  the  succeeding  period 
no  such  clear  mastery  lends  unity  to  the  drama.  The 
rising  genius  of  Pitt  does  not  find  its  real  opportunity 
until  the  resignation  of  Newcastle  in  1756.  Mean- 
while, the  stage  is  filled  with  the  moderate  talents 
of  Pelham  (the  real  successor  of  Walpole),  the 
brilliant  vagaries  of  Carteret,  the  cynical  worldliness 
of  Chesterfield,  and  the  dull  mediocrity  of  Newcastle. 
Even  the  stirring  episodes  of  the  Jacobite  rising,  and 
the  capture  of  Arcot,  fail  to  illumine  the  scene;  for 
the  former  is  felt  to  be  the  last  effort  of  a  dying 
cause,  and  the  significance  of  the  latter  is  not  recog- 
nised.    The  foreign  politics  of  the  time  are  tortuous 


COLONIAL    ENTERPRISE.  I  55 

and  confused  ;  there  is  nothing  of  the  clear  definite- 
ness  <>f  the  issue  for  which  Marlborough  had  fought, 
nor  of  that  for  which  Pitt  was  going  to  fight.  The 
Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  seems  to  mock  the  vast 
expenditure  of  blood  and  treasure,  which  had  drained 
Europe  for  so  many  years,  by  restoring  matters  to 
the  status  quo  ante.  In  domestic  affairs,  we  seem 
to  hear  of  nothing  but  Court  intrigues  and  political 
factions,  unrelieved  by  a  single  gleam  of  principle. 

Nevertheless,  as  in  all  periods  of  our  history,  there 
were  great  principles  and  movements  at  work,  if  we 
could  but  find  them.  The  task  of  national  regenera- 
tion, ever  needing  new  effort,  was  taken  up  by  the 
fervent  hearts  of  Wesley  and  his  followers,  who,  in 
the  year  1740,  definitely  formed  the  great  society  of 
Methodists.  The  steady  progress  of  the  English 
colonies  in  America  was  laying  the  foundations  of 
a  new  world-power,  whose  ultimate  influence  is,  even 
now,  a  matter  of  conjecture,  but  which,  in  this  period, 
was  not  even  dreamt  of.  The  new  activity  of  the 
English  settlements  in  India  was  surely  paving  the 
way  for  that  march  to  glory  which,  perhaps  more  than 
anything  else,  has  given  Britain  her  fame  and  influ- 
ence among  the  nations.  In  the  year  1745,  a  sig- 
nificant motion  by  Sir  Francis  Dashwood,  in  favour 
of  Parliamentary  Reform,  marks  the  definite 
appearance  of  the  great  Radical  movement  which 
was  to  dominate  English  politics  in  the  following 
century.  The  voyages  of  Anson,  and  the  explorations 
of  Byron,  Wall  is,  and  Carteret,  opened  up  the  Pacific 
to  British  adventurers,  and  were  the  precursors  of 
that  brilliant  period  which  added  Australia  and  New 


156  THE   SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIAL 

Zealand  to  the  British  Empire.  But,  for  our  imme- 
diate purpose,  the  interest  of  the  years  from  1742 
to  1756  lies  in  the  part  which  they  contributed 
to  the  definite  establishment  of  the  Cabinet 
System. 

It  would  have  been  too  much  to  expect  that 
George  II.,  on  the  retirement  of  Walpole,  should 
bow  without  an  effort  to  an  incipient  tradition,  which 
deprived  him  of  personal  authority,  and  the  reality  of 
which  was  hardly  admitted,  even  by  those  who  were 
most  concerned  in  its  maintenance.  Accordingly, 
the  King  determined  to  replace  the  retiring  statesman 
with  a  Minister  of  his  own  choosing ;  and  it  is  not  a 
little  significant,  both  of  his  tenacity  and  his  want  of 
imagination,  that  his  choice  should  have  fallen  upon 
the  very  man  whose  ignominious  failure  in  1727  had 
secured  Walpole's  authority  for  a  period  of  fifteen 
years.  But  Wilmington  in  1742  was  more  successful 
than  Compton  had  been  in  1727,  and  he  formed  a 
Ministry  which,  in  some  of  its  features,  looked  like 
a  return  to  the  old  order.  Not  only  were  some 
of  Walpole's  rivals,  such  as  Carteret  and  Pulteney, 
admitted — that,  of  course,  would  appear  to  us  more 
natural  than  the  retention  of  his  friends  ;  but  the 
most  characteristic  features  of  his  system  were 
abandoned.  Wilmington,  the  nominal  Prime  Minis- 
ter, was  a  peer,  and  had  little  influence  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Carteret,  by  far  the  ablest  and  most 
brilliant  member  of  the  Government,  quarrelled 
openly  with  his  colleagues,  and  conducted  foreign 
affairs  without  reference  to  them.  Pulteney  (now 
Earl  of  Bath)  held  no  office,  though  he  was  a  member 


INCIPIENT   REFORM  I  57 

of  the  Cabinet.  Even  Tories,  like  Winchelsea,1  were 
once  more  admitted  to  office  ;  while  the  reconcilia- 
tion effected  between  the  King  and  the  Prince  of 
Wales  deprived  the  "  Leicester  House  Party,"  which 
had  long  been  the  centre  of  Opposition,  of  its  rallying- 
point. 

Still  more  significant  of  a  reaction  against  the 
system  of  Walpole  was  the  passing,  in  the  summer  of 
1742,  of  a  Place  Bill,  or,  as  it  was  called  (to  distinguish 
it  from  more  sweeping  measures  of  a  similar  kind),  a 
"  Bill  to  exclude  certain  officers  from  being  Members 
of  the  House  of  Commons."  A  measureof  this  charac- 
ter had  long  been  a  favourite  proposal  of  Walpole's 
opponents,  who  contended,  with  considerable  show 
of  reason,  that  his  system  could  only  be  maintained 
by  official  corruption.  It  was  strongly  urged  that 
the  provisions  of  the  Act  of  1705  {ante  p.  116)  were 
inadequate,  as  applying  only  to  newly  created  offices. 
Many  of  those  who,  in  the  cold  shade  of  Opposi- 
tion, had  been  the  loudest  advocates  of  the  measure, 
now  found  some  excuse  for  deserting  their  former 
opinion.  But,  in  spite  of  their  defections,  the  Bill  was 
carried,  and  it  excluded  from  the  Lower  House  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Irish  revenue  and  of  the  navy 
and  victualling  offices,  as  well  as  the  subordinate 
officials  of  the  Treasury,  the  Exchequer,  the  Admiralty, 
the  Pay  Offices,  and  the  offices  of  the  Secretaries  of 
State,  and  the  numerous  Commissioners  of  salt, 
stamps,  appeals,  wine  licences,  hackney  coaches,  and 
hawkers   and   pedlars.     At  this  point,   however,   the 

1   He  was  a  son  of  the  famous   Lord    Nottingham,  the  Revolution 
statesman. 


15$  THE   SYSTEM  ON  ITS    TRIAL 

reforming  zeal  of  Parliament  stopped  ;  and  Pension 
and  Place  Bills  of  a  more  sweeping  character  were 
rejected,  while  the  proposal  to  repeal  the  Septennial 
Act  disappeared. 

And  the  death  of  Wilmington  in  1743  speedily 
put  an  end,  for  the  time  at  least,  to  the  King's 
hopes  of  a  purely  departmental  Ministry.  The  Earl 
of  Bath  (Pulteney),  who  had  been  the  real  soul  of 
the  opposition  to  Walpole,  laying  aside  the  role  of 
disinterested  patriotism  which  sat  so  ill  upon  him, 
now  openly  descended  into  the  arena,  and  claimed  the 
great  office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  But  the 
fatal  consequences  of  his  acceptance  of  a  peerage  at 
once  manifested  themselves,  and,  after  a  three  days' 
struggle,  he  was  obliged  to  retire  in  favour  of  Henry 
Pelham,  to  whom  had  fallen  his  position  as  leader 
of  the  Commons'  House,  and,  therewith,  the  leadership 
of  the  Ministerial  part)-.  Pelham  became,  not  only 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  but  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  ;  for  Sandys,  the  only  other  commoner 
in  the  Cabinet,  in  a  fit  of  pique,  refused  to  serve  under 
a  man  who  had  just  been  raised  from  the  subordinate 
office  of  Paymaster.  Thus  Pelham  stepped  at  once 
into  the  shoes  of  Walpole,  who  indeed  was  believed 
to  have  inspired  the  new  arrangements  from  his 
retirement  at    Houghton. 

One  thing  only  was  now  needed  to  restore  the 
system  of  Walpole  in  its  completeness.  The  presence 
of  Carteret  in  the  Cabinet  was  to  the  new  leader,  as 
it  had  been  to  his  great  predecessor  twenty  years 
before,  a  source  of  constant  danger.  Carteret,  incom- 
parably the  most  brilliant  and  fertile  of  the  Ministers 


f)wto  by~\  [Walker  &  Cockerell. 

WILLIAM   PULTENEY   (HATH)    (1682-1764). 
Portrait  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


l6o  THE   SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIAL 

had  thrown  himself  passionately  into  the  whirlpool  of 
Continental  politics  ;  and,  by  his  devotion  to  the 
interests  of  Hanover,  no  less  than  his  familiarity  with 
the  native  language  of  the  King,  was  obtaining  a 
dangerous  hold  over  the  mind  of  his  royal  master. 
Even  before  the  death  of  Wilmington  he  had, 
by  accompanying  George  through  the  Dettingen 
campaign,  and  thus  becoming  the  sole  channel  of 
communication  with  the  closet,  been  a  source  of 
anxiety  to  his  colleagues.  His  hand  is  seen  also  in 
the  open  declaration  of  war  witli  France  which 
followed  on  Wilmington's  death.  Hut  he  was  vain 
and  careless;  ostentatiously  despising  the  minor  arts 
of  political  management,  content,  in  his  own  language, 
"to  make  Kings  and  Emperors,  and  to  maintain  tin- 
balance  of  Europe."  It  is  quite  possible  that,  in 
assenting  to  the  elevation  of  Pelham,  he  thought 
that  he  could  treat  the  new  First  Lord  as  he  had 
treated  Wilmington.  He  soon  discovered  his  mis- 
take. At  the  end  of  the  year  1743  he  persuaded  his 
colleagues,  though  with  the  utmost  difficult}',  into 
proposing  that  16,000  of  the  King's  Hanoverian 
troops  should  be  taken  into  British  pay  ;  and  the 
necessary  motion,  though  fiercely  combated  by  the 
eloquence  of  Pitt  and  Chesterfield,  passed  through 
both  Houses  with  substantial  majorities.  But  Pelham 
and  his  adherents  had  become  thoroughly  alarmed 
by  the  reckless  policy  of  their  colleague,  and  deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  him.  The  ill-success  of  the  war, 
during  the  summer  of  1744,  afforded  the  necessary 
excuse.  The  Pelhams  and  their  supporters  drew  up 
a  memorial  to  the  King,  stating  that  they  felt  them- 


COMMONS   AND   CABINET  l6l 

selves  unable  to  carry  on  the  government  of  the 
country  with  Carteret  (who  had  just  become  Lord 
Granville)  in  his  present  office.  The  King  was  angry 
and  sullen,  Carteret  indignant.  But  the  matter  was 
settled  by  the  logic  of  events.  Looking  over  the 
division  lists  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Carteret 
found  that  his  enemies  could  outvote  him  by  four 
to  one  ;  and  he  bowed  to  the  inevitable.  His  place 
was  taken  by  Lord  Harrington  ;  and  a  few  other 
changes  were  made.  Of  these  the  most  important 
were  the  admission  of  Bedford  and  Gower,  as  repre- 
sentatives of  that  powerful  section  of  the  Whigs  which 
was  afterwards  to  become  famous  as  the  "  Bloomsbury 
Gang,"  and  the  appointment  to  the  Viceroyalty  of 
Ireland,  in  spite  of  his  action  on  the  Hanoverian 
question,  of  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield. 

The  significance  of  the  events  of  1744  can  hardly 
be  questioned.  There  was  no  question  of  party  ;  it 
was  simply  a  matter  of  discipline.  The  favourite 
Minister  of  the  King  refused  to  follow  the  lead  of 
the  man  who  commanded  the  support  of  the  House 
of  Commons  and  the  Cabinet,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
King's  support  and  his  own  transcendent  abilities, 
the  recalcitrant  Minister  was  forced  to  resign.  It  is 
said  that,  in  the  agony  of  the  crisis,  Carteret  appealed 
successfully  for  the  help  of  the  veteran  of  Houghton  ; 
and  if  this  be  so,  it  is  easy  to  understand  Horace 
Walpole's  otherwise  unaccountable  attitude  on  the 
occasion.  The  owner  of  Strawberry  Hill  affects  to 
be  deeply  indignant  at  conduct  which  his  father  had 
practised  over  and  over  again,  and  which,  according 
to    the    principles    of    the    Walpolean    system,    was 

12 


[62  THE   SYSTEM   ON   /T.\    TRIAL 


thoroughly  constitutional.  George  himself  was  far 
more  docile.  Not  only  was  he  compelled  to  accept 
as  Ministers,  and  even  as  household  servants;  men 
who,  like  Sir  John  Cotton  and  Waller,  were  personally 
distasteful  to  him  ;  but  he  was  obliged  to  submit  to 
a  lecture  from  the  Chancellor,  Lord  Hardwicke,  in 
which  it  was  explained  to  him  that  he  must  act  as 
though  all  these  events  had  been  the  result  of  his 
dearest  wishes.  The  poor  King,  not  unnaturally, 
found  the  lesson  hard  to  learn  ;  and  when  Hardwicke, 
with  remorseless  logic,  wound  up  his  harangue  with 
the  orthodox  profession,  that  he  and  his  colleagues 
were  but  the  humble  servants  of  His  Majesty,  the 
persecuted  monarch  burst  out  with  the  bitter 
confession,  "  Ministers  are  the  King  in  this  country." 
The  long  administration  of  Pelham  is  second  only 
to  that  of  Walpole  in  its  importance  for  our  purpose; 
but  it  is  singularly  deficient  in  incident.  The  absence 
of  all  popular  enthusiasm  on  behalf  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  strikingly  manifested  by  the  indifference 
with  which  the  Jacobite  rising  of  1745  was  received. 
The  Pretender,  encouraged  by  the  defeat  of  the 
English  and  their  allies  at  Fontenoy,  landed  in  the 
Highlands  in  July,  reached  Edinburgh  in  safety,  and 
was  actually  proclaimed  King  in  the  Scottish  capital. 
Defeating  ("ope,  the  English  commander,  at  Preston- 
pans,  he  dashed  across  the  English  border,  captured 
Carlisle,  and  reached  Derby  by  the  beginning  of 
December.  Bui  if  there-  was  little  enthusiasm  for 
the  Government,  there  was  even  less,  in  England 
at  least,  for  the  Stuarts.  Thoroughly  alarmed,  the 
Ministers     hurried     troops    home     from     the    Low 


ADMISSION   OF   PITT    TO    OFFICE  [63 

Countries  ;  but,  even  after  his  northward  retreat,  the 
Pretender  was  able  to  claim  another  victory  at 
Falkirk.  In  April,  however,  his  dwindling  host 
was  defeated  at  Culloden,  near  Inverness,  and  the 
rising  stamped  out  with  a  merciless  severity  which 
obtained  for  the  victor  the  title  of  "  Butcher  Cum- 
berland." Even  before  Culloden  a  ministerial  crisis 
had  occurred.  Alarmed  by  their  own  weakness,  the 
Ministers  proposed  to  the  King  to  take  Pitt  into 
office,  The  proposal  was,  according  to  modern  ideas, 
thoroughly  sound  ;  for,  though  Pitt  was  nominally  in 
Opposition  (as  were  most  aspiring  members  who  were 
not  on  the  Ministerial  pay  list),  his  views  were  almost 
entirely  in  accord  with  those  of  the  Pelhams,  and  he 
was  rapidly  rising  into  power  as  the  most  brilliant 
debater  in  the  House.  But  the  King,  who  hated 
Pitt  for  his  outspokenness  on  Hanoverian  questions, 
flatly  refused  to  adopt  the  suggestion,  and  began  to 
listen  to  Bath  and  Granville.  Acting  with  unusual 
promptitude,  the  Ministry  resigned  in  a  body  ;  and. 
after  a  futile  attempt  by  Bath  and  Granville  to  form 
a  Cabinet,  the  King  was  reluctantly  compelled  to 
submit  to  the  demands  of  his  former  Ministers.  Pitt 
was  made  Vice-Treasurer  of  Ireland  and, subsequently, 
Paymaster  of  the  Forces  ;  but  the  feelings  of  the 
King  were  still  strong  enough  to  keep  him  out  of 
the  Cabinet.  The  new  Minister,  however,  added 
considerable  strength  to  the  Government,  and  gained 
great  popularity  for  himself  by  refusing  to  accept  the 
irregular  profits  of  the  Pay  Office.  But,  while  he  thus 
established  a  reputation  for  financial  honesty,  he  took 
less    care  of  his  political   consistency  ;    for  he   soon 


I'>j  THE   SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIAL 

became  a  strenuous  supporter  of  that  Hanoverian 
policy  which  it  had  once  been  his  chief  object  to 
assail. 

The  accession  of  Pitt  to  office  marks,  in  fact,  the 
beginning  of  that  long  oeriod  of  war  which  contrasts 
so  strongly  with  the  period  of  peace  under  his  great, 
predecessor  Walpole.  It  is,  perhaps,  hardly  more 
than  an  accident  that  Pitt  should  have  been  bred  to 
the  profession  of  arms.  He  resigned  that  profession 
lightly,  rather  than  risk  his  chances  in  the  career  of 
politics.  Put  the  whole  temper  of  the  man,  his 
virtues  as  well  as  his  failings,  led  him  in  the  direction 
of  a  warlike  policy.  Intensely  proud  of  his  country's 
fame,  he  could  not  bear  to  see  her  suing  for  peace  at 
the  courts  of  Europe,  or  striving  to  avert  war  by 
diplomatic  caution.  Almost  unerring  in  his  judg- 
ment of  individual  character,  he  felt  confident  of 
being  able  to  select  the  right  men  to  conduct  a  war 
to  a  brilliant  conclusion.  Wielding  the  magnetic 
charm  of  eloquence,  he  knew  that  he  could  always 
rouse  both  the  House  and  the  country  to  those  great 
and  sudden  efforts  which  war  requires.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  had  no  taste  for  the  subterranean  workings 
of  party  management,  and  no  love  for  the  drudgery 
of  administrative  office.  Of  finance  and  political 
economy  he  knew  very  little ;  and  the  slow  develop- 
ment of  the  material  resources  of  the  country  seemed 
to  him  an  unworthy  task  for  a  great  Minister.  Put 
he  was  invaluable  to  his  colleagues,  as  the  one  man 
in  their  ranks  who  could  bring  them  into  touch  with 
the  world  beyond  the  narrow  sphere  of  Court  and 
politics.     The  stroke  of  genius  by  which,  after  the 


PEACE    OF  AIX-LA-CITAPELLE  165 

ruthless  victory  of  Culloden,  lie  converted  the  most 
dangerous  of  the  Highlanders  into  loyal  servants  of 
the  Crown,  by  enrolling  them  in  the  army  and 
allowing  them  to  wear  that  national  dress  which  was 
elsewhere  proscribed,  is  proof  of  an  imagination 
wholly  different  from  the  sordid  policy  of  Newcastle 
and  his  crew.  The  great  Militia  Act  of  1757  was  but 
another  sign  of  the  same  spirit. 

For  some  years,  however,  while  Pitt  occupied  only 
minor  office,  the  military  fortunes  of  the  country  were 
not  brilliant.  The  terrible  defeat  of  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  at  Bergen-op-Zoom,  in  1747,  was  followed 
by  the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  by  which,  as  it 
seemed,  all  the  blood  and  treasure  poured  out  like 
water  during  nine  years  of  devastating  war  were 
recklessly  thrown  away.  France,  the  really  victorious 
Power,  restored  Maestricht  and  Bergen  to  Holland, 
Madras  to  England,  and  Savoy  and  Nice  to  Sardinia, 
engaged  not  to  rebuild  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk, 
and  finally  renounced  the  Stuart  claims.  On  the 
other  hand,  however,  England  gave  up  Cape  Breton, 
and  silently  acquiesced  in  the  Spanish  right  of  search, 
upon  which  the  war  had  nominally  been  commenced. 
The  real  profit  of  the  treaty  fell  to  Austria,  whose 
candidate  for  the  Empire  was  confirmed,  and  whose 
Queen,  Maria  Theresa,  at  last  obtained  the  acceptance 
by  Europe  of  that  Pragmatic  Sanction,  by  which  the 
hereditary  domains  of  her  father  had  been  secured  to 
the  female  line. 

The  remainder  of  Pelham's  political  career  was 
rendered  still  more  tranquil  by  the  deaths,  in  175  1,  of 
the   Prince  of   Wales    and    Lord    Bolingbroke ;    and 


[66  THE   SYSTEM  ON   ITS    TRIAL 

though  the  eye  of  tin-  Great  Commoner  must  have 
lighted  up  as  he  heard  the  news  from  India  of  Clive's 
brilliant  capture  and  defence  of  Arcot,  his  victories 
over  Raja  Sahib,  and  the  taking  of  Trichinopoly, 
Covelong,  and  Chingleput,  these  great  events  seem 
to  have  made  little  impression  on  the  country. 
In  1754  Pelham  died  suddenly;  and  Pitt,  disgusted 
at  being  passed  over  for  nonentities  like  Legge,  who 
was  made  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  Sir 
Thomas  Robinson,  who  became  Secretary  of  State 
and  Leader  of  the  Commons,  found  an  opportunity 
of  resigning  office  in  the  following  year,  leaving  the 
government  of  Newcastle  to  welter  in  inglorious 
mediocrity. 

But  Pitt  had  not  now  long  to  wait.  During  the  life- 
time of  his  brother  (Pelham)  Newcastle  had  failed  to 
see  why  he,  the  owner  of  many  pocket  boroughs  and  an 
income  which  enabled  him  to  buy  the  costly  luxury  of 
support,  should  be  reckoned  inferior  in  political  impor- 
tance to  his  junior  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Now  he 
discovered  how  hard  it  was  for  a  First  Minister  in  the 
Lords  to  control  the  Lower  House  through  a  nonentity 
at  whom  every  one  laughed,  and  whom  Newcastle 
himself  did  not  entrust  with  the  important  secrets  of 
"management."  lie  had  lost  the  powerful  support 
of  Henry  Fox  in  1754,  by  his  obstinate  refusal  to 
make  him  a  confidant  in  this  delicate  matter ; 
for  Fox  very  justly  explained  that  he  could  not 
possibly  manage  the  House  of  Commons,  unless  he 
knew  who  was  being  bribed  and  to  what  extent. 
Now  1755  Newcastle  thought  better  of  it,  and 
induced    Fox    to    accept    the    office    of   Secretary   of 


Copyright,]  [Sir  Benjamin  Sioue. 

STATUE   OF    LORD    CHATHAM    (1708-I/78)    IN    ST.    STEPHEN'S    HALL, 

WESTMINSTER. 

By  D.  Macdowell  R.A. 


l6K  THE    SYS1I ■  1/   <>.V   ITS    TAW  1/ 

State,  poor  Sir  Thomas  Robinson  being-  quietly 
shelved.  But  he  was  still  resolutely  bent  on  ex- 
cluding Pitt,  of  whom  he  was  honestly  afraid,  with 
all  the  terror  of  a  little  mind  for  a  great  one. 
Meanwhile,  however,  the  Cabinet  drifted  irreso- 
lutely into  another  war  with  France  ;  and  it  soon 
became  clear  that  Pitt  was  the  one  man  for  the 
situation.  He  strengthened  himself  by  a  close 
alliance  with  the  Princess  of  Wales,  thus  saving  the 
Leicester  House  party,  and  by  a  marriage  with  Lady 
Hester  Temple,  whose  brother,  Earl  Temple,  a  man 
of  vast  wealth  and  influence,  thenceforth  became  his 
firm  supporter.  In  Lord  Anson,  the  head  of  the 
Admiralty,  he  found  a  warm  adherent.  His  terms 
gradually  rose.  Formerly  he  would  have  been 
content  with  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet ;  now  he  demanded 
the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
Government  went  from  bad  to  worse.  At  the  end  of 
1755  came  the  terrible  news  of  the  destruction  of 
Braddock's  forces  at  Fort  Duquesne.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  1756,  the  nation  was  cheered  by  the  news  of 
a  treaty  with  Prussia  ;  but  Frederick,  the  Prussian 
King,  was  one  of  the  best-hated  men  in  Europe,  and 
the  alliance  was  instantly  threatened  by  a  league 
between  Austria,  Russia,  and  Saxony,  while  it  seemed 
only  too  probable  that  France  would  join  the  coali- 
tion. Byng  failed  to  relieve  Minorca.  A  French 
invasion  was  feared,  and  the  national  pride  received 
a  severe  blow  by  the  spectacle  of  Hessian  and 
Hanoverian  troops,  hastily  brought  over  to  defend 
the  shores  of  Britain.  Finally,  in  the  autumn  of 
[756,    came    the    news    of   the   capture    of   Calcutta 


■I  iT^/forpulft ■ 


.  Earl  temple 


(1711-1779.) 


tJO  Till-    SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIAL 

by  Surajah  Dowlah,  and  the  deliberate  murder  oi 
123  English  prisoners  in  the  Black  Hole.  It  was 
a  time  at  which,  if  ever,  England  stood  in  need 
of  her  best  men;  and  with  one  voice  the  country 
called   for   Pitt 

But  Pitt  was  determined  not  to  place  himself  again 
in  a  false  position.  lie  flatly  refused  to  serve  under 
Newcastle,  or  to  accept  anything  less  than  a  Secretary- 
ship of  State  with  the  leadership  of  the  Commons. 
Further  than  this,  he  determined  to  secure  places  in 
the  Cabinet  for  a  number  of  his  personal  friends, 
sufficient  to  enable  him  to  speak  with  weight  at  the 
Council  Board  as  well  as  in  the  House,  lie  named 
his  brother-in-law  Temple,  George  Grenville,  and 
Legge.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  Newcastle 
had,  for  purposes  of  his  own,  exaggerated  the  King's 
dislike  of  Pitt  ;  but  the  monarch  was  staggered  by 
these  audacious  proposals,  and  Newcastle  once  more 
had  hopes.  At  the  critical  moment,  however,  Chief 
Justice  Ryder  died  ;  and  his  place  was  claimed  by 
William  Murray,  afterwards  the  great  Lord  Mansfield, 
next  to  Fox  incomparably  the  ablest  supporter  of  the 
Newcastle  government  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Finally,  Fox  also  tendered  his  resignation,  and  the 
King  was  obliged  to  give  way.  To  break  the  abrupt- 
ness of  the  blow,  however,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  a 
great  Whig  potentate  of  considerable  ability,  was 
asked  to  fill  the  office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  ; 
and  he,  with  some  reluctance,  consented.  Pitt's 
nominations  were  accepted,  and  the  new  Ministry 
began   its  work   in  the  autumn  of  1756. 

But  trouble  soon  appeared.      The  forces  of  Opposi- 


THE    NEED   OF  REFORM  I  ~  I 

lion  were:  strong;  for,  though  Pitt  was  undoubtedly 
the  choice  of  the  country,  it  was  far  from  certain  thai 
he  was  the  choice  of  Parliament.  It  must  never  be 
forgotten  that,  until  the  Reform  Act  of  1832,  the 
I  louse  of  Commons  but  faintly  represented  the  feelings 
of  the  nation.  The  very  success  of  the  new  system 
had  contributed  powerfully  to  this  result.  The 
extreme  value  of  a  Parliamentary  seat  had  caused  the 
control  of  elections  to  be  eagerly  coveted  by  aspiring 
politicians.  The  county  representation  was  still  fairly 
open  ;  for  the  continued  fall  in  the  value  of  money  was 
steadily  extending  the  area  of  the  forty-shilling 
franchise.  But  the  inequalities  and  anomalies  of  the 
municipal  system  had  rendered  the  boroughs  an  easy 
prey  to  the  speculator.  The  changing  condition  of 
industry  had  reduced  towns  once  populous  to  the 
level  of  mere  villages,  in  which  all  the  influence  was 
easily  acquired  by  unscrupulous  bribery,  while  the 
rapid  growth  of  population  in  other  centres  had  not 
brought  about  political  representation.  The  royal 
prerogative  of  summoning  fresh  boroughs,  though 
never  formally  abolished,  had,  by  tacit  consent  of  all 
parties,  fallen  into  abeyance  before  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century.1  Secrecy  of  debate  in  Parlia- 
ment, once  necessary  in  the  interests  of  independence, 
was  now  jealously  maintained  in  the  interests  of 
corruption.  It  did  not  suit  honourable  members  that 
their  constituents,  and  the  country  at  large,  should 
know  what  was  said  or  done  in  Parliament.  Even 
the  printing  of  the  voting  lists  was  watched  with  great 

1  The  last  example  of  its  exercise  is  said   to  have  been  the  case  of 
Newark,  in  1673. 


17-  THE   SYSTEM   ON    ITS    TRIAL 

jealousy,  and  only  occasionally  permitted.  For  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  Newcastle  and  his  friends  had 
been  amassing  Parliamentary  influence ;  and  they 
used  it  unscrupulously  against  the  new  Ministry. 
Pitt's  power  in  the  House  was  different  from  that  of 
Walpole  or  Pelham.  It  was  great  in  Opposition  ;  for 
many  of  the  Government  nominees,  not  wholly  given 
over  to  corrupt  influences,  shrank  from  incurring  the 
withering  force  of  his  satire,  or  the  thunder  of  his 
denunciations.  But  Pitt  had  none  of  those  arts  of 
management  which  Walpole  and  the  Pelhams  used 
with  such  effect.  He  ostentatiously  despised  the 
details  of  administration,  which,  to  the  average 
politician,  are  the  supreme  interest  of  life.  Moreover, 
although,  as  has  been  said,  the  King's  dislike  of  him 
was  probably  exaggerated  by  Newcastle,  yet  it  was  at 
this  time  very  real.  George  had  not  forgotten  the 
scornful  references  to  Hanover  ;  and  he  looked  with 
deep  suspicion  on  the  connection  between  Pitt  and 
Leicester  House.  Finally,  even  with  the  country  Pitt 
for  a  time  lost  popularity,  by  his  generous  protection 
of  Byng,  whom  the  Admiralty  desired  to  offer  up  as 
a  scapegoat  for  the  failure  at  Minorca.  The  three 
influences  were  too  much  for  him  ;  and  his  enemies 
wet'e  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  their  opportunity. 
In  less  than  six  months  Pitt  and  Temple  were 
abruptly  dismissed  from  office  ;  and  it  seemed  as 
though  the  power  of  the  Great  Commoner  was  at 
an   end. 

Put  this  temporary  check  was  only  the  prelude  to  a 
signal  triumph.  The  real  weakness  ol  Devonshire's 
Cabinet   had   been   its  weakness  in    Parliament.      Few 


THOMAS,   DUKE   OF   NEWCASTLE   (1715-I/68). 
Portrait  by  William  Home. 


174  THE    SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIAL 

people  doubted  Pitt's  ability,  or,  in  spite  of  its 
temporan-  check,  his  real  popularity  in  the  country. 
It  seemed  fairly  obvious,  that  the  only  way  out  of  an 
apparent  deadlock  was  by  an  union  of  Newcastle's 
Parliamentary  influence  with  Pitt's  talents  and  pres- 
tige. But  it  is  striking  testimony  to  the  surviving 
power  of  the  royal  preferences,  and  to  the  jealousies 
of  public  life,  that,  in  the  supreme  crisis  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  with  the  fate  of  the  world  at  stake,  it  took 
nearly  three  months  to  come  to  the  conclusion  which 
most  practical  men  must  have  regarded  as  inevitable. 
Party  principles  had  almost  disappeared.  Newcastle 
had  no  policy,  except  the  policy  of  office.  No  one 
could  doubt  that  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  French 
war  was  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  the  State, 
and  that  in  Pitt  the  country  possessed  an  ideal  War 
Minister.  At  length  personal  difficulties  were  over- 
come. Devonshire,  with  creditable  patriotism,  gave 
up  the  Treasury,  and  continued  to  support  the 
Government  in  the  honorary  office  of  Chamberlain. 
Newcastle  returned  to  the  Treasury  and  the  nominal 
leadership  of  the  Ministry.  Pitt  and  his  friends- 
Temple,  George  Grenville,  and  Legge — resumed  office, 
with  the  understanding  that  the  real  control  of  affairs 
should  be  in  the  hands  of  Pitt. 

Almost  at  once,  as  if  by  magic,  the  face  of  affairs 
changed.  Tin-  terrible  defeat  of  the  Duke  of  Cum- 
berland at  Lauffeld,  and  the  consequent  surrender 
at  Klosterseven,  were  the  last  tragedies  ol  the  old 
order.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  I  1757J  came  the 
news  of  the  brilliant  victory  of  Give  at  Plassey,  and 
the  conquest  of  Bengal.     In    175S  the   recapture   of 


rise  of  run  British  empire  175 

Fort  Duquesne  wiped  out  the  memory  of  Braddock's 
defeat,  and  secured  Western  America  for  the  British. 
In  the  same  year,  the  capture  of  Louisberg  and  Cape 
Breton  threatened  the  French  supremacy  in  Canada. 
Liberal  subsidies  to  Frederick  of  Prussia  enabled  him 
to  hold  the  Continental  alliance  at  bay.  Vigorous 
attacks  on  the  coast  of  France  prevented  the  despatch 
of  reinforcements  to  the  French  in  America.  In 
1759  the  disgrace  of  Lauffeld  was  retrieved  by  the 
great  victory  of  Minden,  in  which  the  French  were 
routed  bv  the  new  commander  of  the  British  and 
Hanoverian  troops  on  the  Continent,  Ferdinand  of 
Brunswick.  But  this  was  as  nothing  to  the  brilliant 
series  of  victories  at  Ticonderoga,  Crown  Point, 
Niagara,  and  finally  on  the  Heights  of  the  Abraham, 
by  which  the  whole  of  Canada  was  wrested  from 
France,  and  the  equally  brilliant  series  of  Wandewash, 
Pondicherry,  and  the  Hooghly,  whereby  the  power 
not  of  Prance  only,  but  of  Holland,  was  for  ever 
broken  in  India.  In  less  than  four  years  the  nation 
passed  from  the  depths  of  despair  to  the  summit  of 
glory.  A  world-empire  had  arisen,  as  it  were  in  a 
night.  In  1757  Britain  was  the  least  of  the  great 
Powers,  if  indeed  she  could  claim  to  rank  at  all  with 
France,  and  Austria,  and  Spain.  In  1760  she  em- 
braced the  earth  with  both  arms,  and  bade  fair  to 
restore  the  fabled  greatness  of  the  mighty  empires  of 
the  ancient  world. 

It  would  appear  incredible,  that  a  Ministry  which 
had  achieved  such  miracles  should  be  on  the  brink 
of  destruction  ;  yet  such,  in  fact,  was  the  case.  In 
I/6o;  at  the  height  of  his  kingdom's  glory,  George  II. 


\j6  THE   SYSTEM   ON   ITS    TRIM, 

died  ;  and  the  advent  of  his  successor  announced  a 
new  era  in  English  politics.  Almost  at  once  (Octo- 
ber, 1 761),  Pitt,  who  had  discovered  the  existence 
of  a  secret  treat}-,  known  as  the  Family  Compact, 
between  France  and  Spain,  resigned  because  his 
colleagues  refused  to  credit  his  information.  The 
hollowness  of  their  excuse  was  shown  when,  in  the 
very  next  year,  the  war  which  he  had  urged  was 
declared.  But,  in  truth,  a  new  influence,  incompatible 
with  existing  arrangements,  was  at  work  ;  and  the 
speedy  resignation  of  Newcastle  marks  the  transition 
to„a  different  order. 

To  conclude  this  chapter,  it  may  be  well  to  indi- 
cate the  real  contribution  of  Pitt's  first  two  Ministries 
to  the  evolution  of  the  Cabinet  System.  His  advent 
to  power  in  1756  points  to  the  appearance  of  a  new- 
factor  in  politics — the  factor  of  public  approval,  as 
distinguished  from  the  approval  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  That  this  new  power  was  perfectly  realised 
by  the  King,  is  shown  by  George's  famous  remark  to 
Pitt  himself.  "You  have  taught  me,"  he  said,  "to 
look  for  the  sense  of  my  subjects  in  another  place 
than  the  House  of  Commons."  Put  Pitt's  dismissal 
in  1757,  and  his  subsequent  difficult  reconciliation 
with  Newcastle,  showed,  too,  that  mere  popularity, 
without  the  steady  exercise  of  Parliamentary 
influence,  though  it  might  place  a  Minister  in  office, 
was  not  sufficient  to  keep  him  there.  It  is  easy  to 
assume  that  the  man  who  pleases  the  nation  must 
also  of  necessity  please  the  representative  House. 
In  an  ideal  democracy  the  assumption  would, no  doubt, 
be  approximately  true.     But  England    in    1756  was 


THE    NE  W   FACTi  'A'    IN   POl.lTIt  S  I  77 

very  far  from  being  an  ideal  democracy;  and  the  so- 
called  representative  Mouse  was,  in  fact,  one  of  the 
great  bulwarks  of  aristocratic  privilege.  It  ma)-  be 
that,  in  spite  of  Reform  Bills  and  Ballot  Acts,  the 
House  fulfils  an  analogous  function  at  the  present 
day.  At  least  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  that  the 
Chief  Minister  of  England  is  not,  like  the  American 
President,  chosen  by  the  direct  suffrages  of  the 
people,1  but  by  a  curious  process  of  indirect  selec- 
tion, the  precise  character  of  which  is  still  not 
entirely  free  from  dispute. 

1  Curiously  enough,  the  framers  of  the  American  Constitution 
attempted  to  provide  an  indirect  system  for  the  election  of  the 
President.  Hut,  as  every  one  knows,  the  double  election  has  been  a 
farce  for  more  than  a  century.  And,  in  any  case,  the  presidential 
electors  are  chosen  ad  hoc ;  and  it  is  expressly  provided  that  they  shall 
not  be  members  of  the  legislative  body. 


13 


VII 

A    PATRIOT    KING 

During  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  long  reign  of 
George  III.  the  last  serious  attempt  to  stifle  the 
growth  of  the  Cabinet  System  took  place.  It  was 
so  vigorously  conducted,  so  long  maintained,  and  so 
nearly  successful,  that  a  study  of  its  methods  becomes 
imperative  at  this  point. 

It  is  usual,  of  course,  to  attribute  the  attack  to  the 
personal  efforts  of  the  young  King  who  ascended  the 
throne  in  1760.  George  III.  was  the  son  of  that 
Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  who  had  faithfully 
adopted  the  Hanoverian  tradition,  by  which  the 
eldest  son  of  the  reigning  monarch  assumed  an 
attitude  of  hostility  to  his  father,  and  whose  house 
had  been  the  meeting-place  of  those  "Patriots"  of 
whom  Walpole  spoke  with  such  bitter  contempt.  In 
a  sense,  the  Opposition  which  gathered  round  the 
Prince  may  be  termed  the  first  example  of  a  "  con- 
stitutional Opposition,"  for  it  did  not,  as  the  Jacobite 
Opposition  did,  aim  at  changing  the  dynasty.     But 

it  was  unfortunate  that  it  should  seek  the  protection 

j  78 


EDUCATION   OF   THE    KING  I/Q 

(if  the  Heir- Apparent ;  for  such  a  course  inevitably 
imperilled    the    growing   maxim  of  government,  so 

essential  to  the  success  of  the  Cabinet  System,  that 
the  monarch  should  take  no  personal  part  in 
politics. 

On  the  death  of  the  Prince,  in  175 1,  his  widow, 
the  Princess  Augusta  of  Saxe  Gotha,  continued, 
though  with  some  caution,  the  attitude  of  her 
husband,  more  particularly  in  her  dislike  of  the 
system  by  which,  as  it  seemed  to  her,  the  monarch 
was  reduced  to  the  position  of  a  cipher  in  his  own 
kingdom.  As  this  system  had  been,  emphatically, 
the  work  of  the  Whigs,  it  was  natural  that  she  should 
be  drawn  towards  their  rivals,  the  Tories,  who  were 
now,  owing  to  the  deaths  of  the  older  members  of  the 
party,  and  the  virtual  abandonment  of  the  Stuart 
claims,  becoming  rapidly  reconciled  to  the  Hanoverian 
dynasty.  But  it  was  somewhat  ominous,  that  both 
Harcourt  and  Waldegrave,  Tories  as  they  were, 
and  very  far  from  favouring  the  independence  of 
Ministers,  had  been  found  incompatible  with  the 
ideas  which  received  favour  at  Leicester  House  after 
the  death  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  had  been 
compelled  to  yield  to  the  more  pronounced  servility 
of  Bute  and  Stone-. 

The  education  of  her  vouthful  son,  the  future 
monarch,  played,  of  course,  a  great  part  in  the  plans 
of  the  Princess.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  Boling- 
broke's  famous  tract.  The  Idea  of  a  Patriot  King, 
was  written  with  a  special  view  to  the  formation  of 
the  mind  of  the  young  Prince  ;  and,  though  we  may 
well  doubt  whether  a  man  of  Bolingbroke's  notorious 


iSo  A    PATRIOT   KING 

character  could  ever  really  be  trusted  by  one  whose 
whole  fortunes  were  bound  up  with  the  Hanoverian 
succession,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  this  at  least 
was  the  popular  belief  at  the  time.  The  pamphlet 
itself,  at  the  present  day,  reads  like  a  string  of  the 
veriest  platitudes.  "  But  it  was  directed,  with  con- 
summate skill,  against  those  whom,  despite  their 
lenient  treatment  of  him,  its  author  regarded  with 
feelings  of  bitter  aversion  ;  and  we  may  be  well 
assured,  that  there  were  not  wanting  those  who 
would  interpret  its  hidden  allusions  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Princess  and  her  son.  Moreover,  there  were 
certain  lessons  inculcated  by  it  which  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  acceptable  to  the  ears  of  royalty.  "  First 
then,  he "  (the  Prince)  "  must  begin  to  govern  as 
soon  as  he  begins  to  reign."  Such  advice  was  not 
likely  to  be  thrown  away  on  the  daughter-indaw  of 
George  II.  "To  espouse  no  part}-,  but  to  govern 
like  the  common  father  of  his  people"  would  appear, 
to  a  youthful  and  ambitious  prince,  the  plainest 
duty  of  his  position.  But  if  the  Patriot  King  is  to 
"espouse  no  party,  much  less  will  he  proscribe  an)-"  ; 
for,  as  the  writer  suggests,  and  with  some  reason, 
Toryism  is  now  clear  of  the  taint  of  Jacobitism.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  really  sound  advice  of  Boling- 
broke,  to  allow  personal  favourites  no  share  in  matters 
of  State,  appears  to  have  been  neglected  ;  for  do  we 
not  all,  princes  and  private  men  alike,  select  from 
the  advice  of  our  counsellors  such  items  as  please  us, 
and  overlook  those  which  go  not  with  our  feelings? 

A  much  more  respectable  Mentor  of  the  youthful 
Telemachus    was    Sir    William     Blackstone,    whose 


blackstone' s  COMMENTARIES  I S I 

rising  fame  as  a  jurist  almost  exactly  tallies  with  the 
most  impressionable  years  of  the  future  King.  His 
famous  Commentaries  on,  the  Laws  of  England, 
though  not  published  till  1765,  had  been  taking 
shape  for  at  least  ten  years  previously  ;  and  it  is  con- 
fidently stated  that  the  manuscript  was  borrowed  for 
the  use  of  the  Prince.  Deeply  respectful  of  authority, 
while  at  the  same  time  maintaining  an  appearance 
of  independence,  florid  in  expression,  cheerfully 
optimistic  in  style,  easy  of  comprehension,  Black- 
stone's  lectures  were  exactly  fitted  to  captivate  a 
mind  like  that  of  George  III.  Blackstone  was  a 
lawyer,  lecturing  on  law,  and  he  therefore,  quite 
properly,  ignored  all  those  conventions  and  practices, 
which,  however  essential  to  the  conduct  of  daily  life, 
had  not  obtained  definite  recognition  by  Courts  of 
Justice.  More  particularly  was  this  the  case  in  the 
chapters  in  which  the  writer  dealt  with  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country.  All  that  intricate  growth  of 
custom  which,  as  we  have  tried  to  show,  had,  in  the 
previous  half  century,  completely  altered  the  character 
of  English  politics,  he  entirely  overlooked;  for  it  had 
not  when  he  wrote  (has  not  even  now)  become  part 
of  that  law  of  which  Courts  of  Justice  take  account. 
With  Blackstone,  the  King  is  "not  only  the  chief, 
but  properly  the  sole,  magistrate  of  the  nation,"  and 
the  author  does  not  deem  it  necessary  to  "  investigate 
the  powers  and  duties  of  His  Majesty's  great  officers 
of  state,  the  lord  treasurer,  lord  chamberlain,  the 
principal  secretaries,  or  the  like  ;  because  I  do  not 
know  that  they  are  in  that  capacity  in  any  con- 
siderable degree  the  objects  of  our  laws,  or  have  any 


1 82  ./    PATRIOT   KING 

very  important  share  of  magistracy  conferred  upon 
them."  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  pupil  of  Mute, 
whose  close  friendship  with  the  Princess  was  causing 
scandal  even  before  the  death  of  George  1 1.,  should 
adopt  tin-  view,  that  the  whole  system  of  Cabinet 
government  was  a  deliberate  encroachment  upon  the 
just  rights  of  the  monarch,  harmful  alike  to  King 
and  people.  From  the  very  moment  of  his  accession, 
the  youthful  King  bent  himself,  with  all  the  tenacity 
of  a  singularly  tenacious  mind,  to  restore  the 
medieval  monarch)-. 

But  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed,  that  the  will  of  a 
youthful  monarch,  without  political  experience  and 
with  very  little  natural  intelligence,  would  have 
succeeded  in  upsetting,  even  for  a  time,  a  system 
which  it  was  the  interest  of  so  many  powerful 
statesmen  to  maintain,  unless  it  had  been  favoured 
by  special   circumstances. 

One  of  these  circumstances  was  the  condition  of 
political  parties  in  England.  The  great  weakness  of 
the  Cabinet  System  at  the  time  lay  in  the  fact, 
that  it  was  the  possession  of  a  single  part)-.  The 
Tories  had  never  accepted  it.  Long  excluded  as  a 
party  from  all  hopes  of  office,  the)-  had  newer  ceased 
to  denounce  the  system  of  Ministerial  patronage 
which,  as  they  alleged,  was  practised  with  the  sole 
object  of  accumulating  offices  in  the  hands  of  greedy 
adventurers.  As  a  consequence  of  their  exclusion 
from  power,  what  maybe  called  the  practical  Opposi- 
tion, i.e.,  the  possible  successors  of  a  defeated  Ministry, 
had  long  consisted  of  discontented  members  of  the 
party  in  power.      Differing  thus  from  oik:  another  on 


WEAKNESS    OF    THE    CABINET  SYSTEM  I  S3 

no  great  principles,  but  only  on  personal  questions,  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  struggles  of  Ministers  and 
Opposition  should  sink  to  the  level  of  mere  factious 
disputes  about  place  and  power.  This  truth  had 
been  strikingly  manifested  in  the  long  interval  which 
had  elapsed  between  the  fall  of  Walpole  and  the 
accession  of  Pitt  to  high  office  ;  and  although  the 
latter  event  had  brought  into  existence  a  Cabinet 
which,  after  an  almost  unprecedented  series  of 
triumphs,  seemed  to  present  an  unassailable  front, 
yet  Pitt  himself,  the  very  man  who  represented  the 
new  order,  disgusted  with  the  tyranny  of  Newcastle, 
was  borrowing  the  language  of  Bolingbroke,  and 
talking  of  the  necessity  of  breaking  up  party  divi- 
sions. Thus  one  great  party,  just  reawakening  to 
life  after  an  enforced  torpor  of  half  a  century,  and 
inheriting  from  its  Jacobite  ancestry  a  tradition  of 
prerogative,  was  positively  hostile  to  the  Cabinet 
System,  while  the  most  distinguished  member  of  the 
other  was  expressing,  with  all  the  vigour  and  reck- 
lessness which  characterised  his  actions,  his  disbelief 
in  that  system. 

As  he  looked  abroad,  the  King  found  still  stronger 
confirmation  of  his  views.  Whilst  the  last  hundred 
years  had  done  much  to  lessen  the  personal  weight 
of  the  monarch)-  in  English  politics,  the  same  period 
had  witnessed  an  extraordinary  development  of 
absolutism  on  the  Continent.  The  long  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.  in  France  had  resulted  in  a  system  in 
which  everything  turned  upon  the  personal  caprice 
of  the  King.  The  nobles  had  been  converted  into 
Court  grandees,  who  vied  with  one  another  in  abject 


1S4  A    PATRIOT  KING 

servility  to  the  Crown.  The  disappearance  of  the 
States-General  had  left  even  the  power  of  taxation 
in  the  hands  of  the  monarch  ;  and  although  the  Parlia- 
ments, or  Supreme  Law  Courts,  made  a  show  of 
resistance,  the  absence  of  an  uniform  system  of  law- 
weakened  and  divided  their  counsels.  The  rising 
power  of  Prussia  was  simply  a  drilled  camp  obeying 
the  commands  of  the  King.  In  Austria  and  in  Spain 
the  one  avenue  to  political  office  was  the  personal 
favour  of  the  monarch  ;  and  the  stead}-  advance  of 
Russia  in  European  importance  threw  a  powerful 
weight  into  the  scale  of  despotism.  George  could 
not  but  feel  that,  beside  his  brother  monarchs,  he 
would  be  a  king  in  name  only  if  he  accepted  his 
grandfather's  position  ;  and,  conscious  of  his  popu- 
larity and  of  the  honesty  of  his  aims,  he  determined 
to  make  a  bold  bid  for  power. 

His  first  choice  of  an  adviser  was  characteristic. 
During  the  last  few  years  of  George  II.'s  reign,  Lord 
Bute  had  secured  a  complete  ascendency  in  the 
councils  of  Leicester  House  ;  and  the  great  object  of 
the  young  prince  and  his  mother  had  been  to  secure 
for  the  King  a  recognition  of  his  alleged  merits.  By 
dint  of  unscrupulous  manceuvring  they  had  succeeded, 
even  before  the  old  King's  death,  in  overcoming  the 
latter's  dislike  of  the  favourite,  to  the  extent  of  obtain- 
ing for  him  the  office  of  Groom  of  the  Stole.  The 
rancour  of  national  and  political  feeling  forbids  us  to 
accept  the  contemporary  estimate  of  Bute  as  any 
approach  to  the  truth.  Hut  there  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
no  evidence  that  he  had  any  political  ability.  His 
original   patron,   Frederick,   Prince  of  Wales,  said  of 


Copyright^ 


[Gibbings  &  C< 


THE     EARL    ol<'    BUTE    (1713-1792). 
Portrait  by  Str  Joshua  Reynolds. 


1 86  ./    PATRIOT   KING 


him,  somewhat  unkindly,  that  he  would  make  an 
excellent  ambassador  in  a  Court  where  there  was  no 
business  ;  and  it  was  undeniable  that  he  owed  his 
fortunes  almost  entirely  to  his  handsome  person  and 
the  servility  of  his  views.  lie  was  now  called  upon 
by  the  King  to  draw  up  the  Speech  to  be  delivered 
by  the  new  ruler  at  his  first  Council  ;  and,  so  far 
more  successful  than  Compton  at  the  accession  of 
George  II.,  he  managed  to  produce  a  draft  of  a  kind. 
The  jealous  criticism  of  Englishmen  saw  matter  of 
suspicion  in  the  fact  that  the  King  was  made  to 
glory  in  the  name  of  "Briton"  '  ;  but  Pitt  found  far 
graver  cause  for  censure  in  the  clause-  which  stigma- 
tised the  war  as  "bloody  and  expensive,"  and  he 
insisted  that,  in  the  copies  printed  for  circulation, 
the  qualifying  epithets  of  "just  and  necessary" 
should  be  added.  It  was  soon  evident,  that  the  line 
to  be  adopted  by  the  favourite  was  that  of  procuring 
a  peace  at  all  costs  ;  and  the  obvious  purpose  of  the 
King,  combined  with  the  skilful  sowing  of  discord 
between  Pitt  and  Newcastle,  produced,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  resignation  of  the  former  in  1761.  Even 
before  that  time  a  palace  intrigue  had  got  rid  of 
Lord  Holdernesse,  Pitt's  colleague  in  the  secretary- 
ship of  State,  and,  to  the  disgust  of  the  Cabinet, 
his  place  was  filled  by  Bute.  Almost  at  the  same 
moment,  Legge,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  a 
personal  enemy  of  tin-  favourite,  was  rudely  dis- 
missed, his  place  being  filled  by  Lord  Harrington,  a 
devoted  adherent  of  the  prerogative;  while  Charles 

'  The  satire  ol  the  time  alleged  that  the  draftsman  originally  spelt 
tin-  word  "  Britain." 


THE    BUTE   MINISTRY  1 87 

Townshend,  a  brilliant  but  erratic  genius,  destined  to 
outvie  the  follies  of  Carteret,  was  admitted  to  office 
as  Secretary  at  War.  In  1762  Newcastle,  now 
thoroughly  baffled,  was  compelled  to  resign  ;  and 
Bute,  throwing  off  all  disguise,  appeared  in  the  great 
office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  as  the  osten- 
sible head  of  the  Ministry,  while  to  Sir  Francis 
Dashwood,  an  utterly  reckless  adventurer  of  noto- 
rious character,  was  given  the  responsible  post  of 
Chancellor  of  the  Fxchequer.  Thus,  in  less  than 
two  years,  a  Ministry,  which  had  raised  the  country 
to  the  height  of  glory,  was  driven  from  office  to 
make  way  for  a  Ministry  of  Court  favourites  and 
buffoons. 

So  rapid  was  the  change,  and  so  vigorous  the 
onslaught,  that  the  forces  of  Opposition  seem  for  the 
moment  to  have  been  paralysed.  Bute  pushed  on 
the  negotiations  for  peace,  and  found  his  enemy, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  only  too  ready  to 
treat  with  one  who  manifested  the  utmost  willing- 
ness to  grant  easy  terms.  Nor  can  the  Peace  of 
Paris  (February  10,  1763)  be  regarded  as  unfavour- 
able to  Great  Britain.  The  victories  of  Wolfe  and 
Boscawen  secured  the  great  Dominion  of  Canada  for 
the  British  ;  the  French  only  kept  the  little  islands 
of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon  off  Newfoundland.  In 
America,  the  Mississippi  became  the  boundary  of 
British  rule  ;  and  Spain  gave  up  her  claims  to  Florida. 
The  national  pride  was  gratified  by  the  restoration 
of  Minorca,  notwithstanding  the  failure  of  Byng  ; 
and  the  French  king  undertook  once  more  to  demo- 
lish   the    fortifications    of    Dunkirk.      On    the    other 


[88  A    PATRIOT  K/Xr, 

hand,  the  French  received  back  Pondicherry  and 
their  other  Indian  possessions,  though  with  a  condi- 
tion that  they  should  not  be  fortified  ;  and  Spain, 
which  had  suffered  severely  in  the  last  two  years  of 
the  war,'  recovered  Cuba,  Havannah,  and  the  Philip- 
pines, while  Louisiana  was  ceded  to  her  by  France 
as  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Florida.  The  West 
Indian  islands  were  divided  between  Britain  and 
France  ;  but    Britain  obtained  the  lion's  share. 

Bute,  however,  had  not  succeeded  in  carrying  out 
the  King's  wishes  without  making  at  least  one  humi- 
liating sacrifice.  He  soon  discovered  that  it  was 
impossible  to  carry  on  the  government,  without  a 
really  strong  representative  of  the  Court  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  King  might  employ  the  secret 
service  money  and  use  the  Crown  influence  at  elec- 
tions ;  but  the  House,  secure  in  the  secrecy  of  its 
debates,  could  not  be  brought  to  heel  by  directions 
issued  from  a  distant  council-chamber.  Sir  Francis 
Dashwood,  the  natural  representative  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  House,  was  a  mere  Court  nominee, 
without  influence  and  without  political  reputation. 
The  nature  of  his  principles  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that,  after  bringing  forward  the  first  Radical 
resolution  in  favour  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  and 
making  himself  notorious  as  the  chosen  friend  of  the 
demagogue  Wilkes,  he  accepted  office  in  a  Ministry, 
the  chief  object    of  which   was    to    destroy   popular 


1  Pitt's  prescience  had  been  shown  by  the  facl  that,  in  the  very 
next  year  after  his  resignation,  the  Ministers  who  forced  that  resigna- 
tion  had  been  obliged   to  l<>]!.,w  his  advice  ami  declare  war  against 

|  in. 


PERSECUTION   OF    WHIGS  189 

influence  in  politics.  Bute  accordingly  cast  his  eyes 
on  Henry  Fox,  Newcastle's  old  colleague,  a  man  of 
great  ability  and  experience,  who  then  enjoyed  the 
lucrative  office  of  Paymaster  of  the  Forces,  but 
without  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet.  Fox  was,  person- 
ally, most  distasteful  to  the  King,  and  it  was 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  the  monarch  could 
be  brought  to  yield  to  hard  necessity.  At  last  he 
gave  way,  and  the  wisdom  of  the  step  was  shown  by 
the  success  of  the  new  Minister  in  persuading  the 
House  to  accept  the  Peace.  But  the  bargain  reeked 
of  iniquity,  and  the  disgraceful  corruption  which 
Bute  and  Fox  had  to  practise  seems  to  have  soured 
the  tempers  of  both.  The  Government  embarked  on 
a  course  of  savage  persecution  of  its  opponents, 
which  roused  the  bitterest  feelings  of  hostility  in  the 
nation,  and  threatened  to  inflict  on  the  country  the 
worst  evils  of  the  "  spoils  system,"  without  the 
excuse  that  such  a  desperate  remedy  was  necessary 
to  maintain  party  government  in  existence.  New- 
castle, Grafton,  and  Rockingham  were  deprived  of 
the  lieutenancies  of  their  counties,  although  the  post 
had  hitherto  (with  rare  exceptions)  been  treated  as 
a  life  office.  Devonshire  was  dismissed  from  the 
Chamberlainship  and  the  Privy  Council  with  every 
circumstance  of  ignominy.  Nor  did  the  persecution 
stop  at  high  rank.  Humble  officials,  whose  only 
crime  was  that  they  had  owed  their  positions  to 
Whig  Ministers,  were  hunted  out  and  dismissed. 
Pensions  which  had  been  bestowed  for  really  meri- 
torious services  were  forfeited.  Every  effort  was 
made  to  render  it   perfectly  clear,  that  no   one  who 


IQO  A    PATRIOT    KING 

was  not  prepared  to  follow  blindly  the  directions  of 
the  Court  need  ever  hope  for  the  slightest  recognition 
by  the  State. 

But  Bute  was  very  much  mistaken  if  he  supposed 
that  a  high-spirited  nation  would  tamely  submit  to 
treatment  of  this  kind.  Englishmen  may  easily  be 
led  by  flattery,  too  often,  it  is  to  be  feared,  by  bribery. 
Hut  they  will  seldom  submit  to  be  bullied,  least  of  all 
by  a  man  whom  they  regard  as  an  alien.  In  the 
hour  of  his  apparent  triumph,  Bute  felt  the  ground 
slipping  from  beneath  his  feet.  The  murmur  of 
sullen  resentment  grew  louder.  No  persuasions  or 
threats  could  induce  the  great  public  bodies  of  the 
country  to  offer  congratulations  on  the  Peace.  The 
people  much  preferred  to  burn  Bute  in  effigy,  and 
to  indulge  in  scandalous  stories  about  the  Princess 
Dowager.  Pitt  was  still  the  real  leader  of  the  nation. 
When  he  joined  the  King's  procession  to  Guildhall, 
his  coach  was  surrounded  by  adoring  multitudes ; 
while  the  King  was  left  in  cold  neglect.  It  was  in 
vain  that  Fox  marshalled  his  well-paid  majorities  in 
the  Commons.  People  were  beginning  to  feel  that 
the  House  itself  was  not  the  final  arbiter  of  the 
nation's  destinies.  Thoroughly  frightened  by  the 
storm  he  had  raised,  Bute  determined  to  resign.  On 
April  8,  1763,  the  public  was  astonished  to  learn 
that  the  all-powerful  Minister  had  given  up  his 
office. 

Thus  the  first  attempt  to  crush  the  Cabinet  System 
had  met  an  ignominious  fate.  But  if  the  Whigs 
imagined  chat  the  King  would  abandon  the  cherished 
purpose  of  his  life  at  the  first  rebuff,  the)'  underesti- 


Portrait  by  Sir  Joshua  Rcym  Ids. 


tQ2  .1    PATRIOT   KING 

mated   the   resources  of  the   man    with    whom    they 
had  to  deal. 

The  second  stage  in  the  struggle  has  been  de- 
picted  for  us  in  the  classical  pages  of  Burke,  whose: 
Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of  the  Present  Discontents, 
published  in  I//0,  is  of  great  value,  not  merely  as 
a  masterly  analysis  of  contemporary  politics,  but 
as  the  first  adequate  account  of  that  new  system 
which  the  King  was  seeking  to  destroy.  The  great 
merit  of  the  work  lies  in  its  happy  combination 
of  philosophical  breadth  of  treatment  with  practical 
knowledge.  The  writer  is  neither  a  mere  philosopher 
nor  a  mere  politician  ;  he  is,  in  the  best  sense  of  that 
noble  word,  a  statesman,  a  man  who  overlooks  neither 
permanent  principles  nor  immediate  needs,  but  accords 
a  due  weight  to  both.  Mis  language  never  loses  the 
dignity  of  literature,  though  it  has  all  the  vigour  of 
ji  lurnalism.  The  student  who  would  appreciate  its  full 
beauty  should  compare  it  with  one  or  two  of  the  con- 
temporary Letters  of  Junius.  The  latter  owe  what 
little  interest  they  now  possess  to  the  trenchant  vigour 
of  their  style,  and  to  the  impenetrable  mystery  which, 
for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  has  hung  around 
their  authorship.  Burke's  pamphlet  is  as  full  of 
teaching  to-day  as  it  was  when  it  was  published.  Its 
one  defect  is  due  to  the  brilliance  of  its  author's 
imagination,  which  occasionally  led  him  to  attribute 
to  the  mere  temporary  schemes  of  his  opponents,  a 
definiteness  and  a  thoroughness  of  which  the  authors 
of  those  schemes  were  incapable.  But,  with  due 
allowance  for  this  drawback,  it  is  still  the  most 
luminous  guide  we  have  to  the  seven  years  which 
followed  the  resignation  of  Bute. 


GEORGE    GRENVILLE   ( lJIJ-IJ/O). 

Portrait  by  Ridley. 


14 


194  •'    PATRIOT  KING 

According  to  Burke,  the  objects  which  George  III. 
set  before  himself,  in  the  second  stage  of  his  struggle 
with  the  system  which  he  was  determined  to  destroy, 
were,  to  separate  the  Court,  as  the  centre  of  the 
personal  influence  of  the  King,  from  the  ostensible 
Ministry  of  the  day  ;  to  maintain  a  powerful  bodv  of 
followers,  dependent  entirely  on  the  personal  favour 
of  the  King,  and  independent  of  the  Ministry;  and, 
finally,  to  alienate  the  Mouse  of  Commons  from  the 
Ministry,  and  thus  to  deprive  the  latter  of  that 
stronghold  which,  in  the  Cabinet  System,  is  the  great 
source  of  its  power.  To  this  end  it  was  necessary, 
first,  that  all  men  of  commanding  influence,  either  in 
the  1  louse  of  Commons  or  in  the  nation,  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  Cabinet;  secondly,  that  the  Ministers 
should,  so  far  as  possible,  be  confined  each  to  the 
administration  of  his  own  department  ;  thirdly,  that 
the  Ministers  should  be  discredited  in  the  eves  of  the 
country,  either  by  their  characters,  or  by  the  odium 
of  appearing  to  authorise  unpopular  acts  ;  and,  finally, 
that,  by  the  exercise  of  patronage  and  corruption,  the 
majority  in  the  Mouse  of  Commons  should  be  at  the 
disposal  of  the  secret  agents  of  the  Court. 

Nothing  can  be  a  surer  testimony  to  the  weakness 
of  the  political  morality  of  the  day,  than  that  such 
a  scheme  should  have  been  feasible.  The  man 
selected  by  the  King  to  play  the  odious  part  of  First 
Minister  in  the  piece  was  George  Grenville,  the 
brother-in-law  of  Pitt,  a  man  who  owed  his  official 
position  almost  entirely  to  the  popularity  of  the 
Great  Commoner,  but  who  regarded  politics  mainly 
as  a  profession,  and  who,  on  the  fall  of  Pitt's  Ministry, 


JOHN    WILKES    (1 727-1 797). 

Portrait  by  Hogarth, 


I96  A    PATRIOT   KING 

had  not  hesitated  to  take  service  under  Bute. 
Grcnville  had  not  even  the  excuse  of  personal  de- 
votion to  the  Crown,  for,  in  his  pedantic  way,  he  was 
a  professed  Whig,  and  treated  his  royal  master  with 
a  rudeness  which  led  to  his  dismissal  in  1765.  With 
him  were  joined  Egremont,  a  Tory  nobleman  of 
little  ability,  Halifax,  a  nominal  Whig  of  equally 
little  weight,  Henley,  one  of  the  least  respectable  of 
the  long  line  of  occupants  of  the  woolsack,  the  Duke 
of  Bedford,  an  unpopular  and  notoriously  un- 
scrupulous wirepuller,  the  head  of  the  malcontent  Whig 
faction  known  as  the  "  Bloomsbury  Gang,"  Gower, 
one  of  Bed  ford's  least  reputable  followers,  Sandwich, 
the  profligate  companion  of  Wilkes,  and  Henry  Fox, 
now  Lord  Holland,  whose  conduct  over  the  Peace 
had  deprived  him  of  all  claims  to  political  honest}-. 
Within  such  a  body  there  could  be  no  cordial  co- 
operation, and  for  such  a  body  there  could  be  no 
popular  respect.  It  was  exactly  calculated  to  illus- 
trate by  its  defects  the  principle  laid  down  by  Burke 
that,  in  a  popular  system  of  government,  the  only 
sound  bases  of  political  authority  are  power  arising 
from  popularity  and  power  arising  from  connection. 

The  life  of  this  Ministry  was  short  and  disgraceful. 
Almost  immediately  after  its  appointment,  the 
country  was  plunged  into  a  ferment  of  excitement 
by  the  proceedings  connected  with  the  first  prose- 
cution of  Wilkes.  John  Wilkes  was  a  notorious 
demagogue  of  infamous  character,  who  had  estab- 
lished in  1762  a  paper  called  The  North  Briton^ 
which  rivalled  in  outspokenness  and  scurrility,  though 
not  in  ability,  the  famous  Craftsman  of  Bolingbrokc. 


PXOSECUTIO.V   OF    WILKES  XcjJ 

Iii  No.  45  of  77/r  North  Briton  there  appeared  an 
article,  criticising  with  great  severity  the  royal  speech 
which  closed  Parliament  in  April,  1763.  The  article 
in  question  very  carefully  refrained  from  making  any 
personal  reflection  on  the  King,  and  ostentatiously 
treated  the  Speech  from  the  Throne  as  the  work  of 
the  King's  Ministers.  At  the  present  day,  such  a 
course  of  action  would  be  regarded  as  thoroughly 
constitutional  ;  and,  even  in  1763,  it  was  generally 
admitted,  that  the  practice  of  half  a  century  had 
sanctioned  the  assumption  on  which  the  article  was 
based.  But  the  King  chose  to  consider  the  attack  as 
directed  against  himself,  and  insisted  that  its  author 
should  be  prosecuted  for  a  seditious  libel.  The 
prosecution  was  completely  political  in  its  character. 
Halifax,  the  Secretary  of  State,  signed  a  General 
Warrant  (i.e.,  a  warrant  containing  no  names) 
authorising  a  search  to  be  made  for  the  authors  of 
the  alleged  libel,  a  process  which  resulted  in  a  series 
of  steps  such  as  we  now  associate  with  the  political 
system  of  Russia,  and  which  openly  violated  a 
cardinal  rule  of  English  justice,  that  it  is  for  the 
prosecution,  and  not  for  the  accused,  to  furnish 
evidence  in  support  of  a  criminal  charge.  Under 
the  warrant,  nearly  fifty  persons  were  arrested  and 
imprisoned,  including  Wilkes  himself,  who  was  at 
this  time  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Wilkes  lost  no  time  in  testing  the  validity  of  these 
proceedings  by  applying  for  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus, 
upon  the  return  of  which  he  was  at  once  set  at  liberty 
by  Pratt,  afterwards  Lord  Camden,  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Common   Pleas.     Unfortunately  Pratt,  though 


I*/S  .;    PATRIOT  KING 

he  expressed  a  pretty  clear  opinion  of  the  invalidity 
of  tin.-  Genera]  Warrant,  rested  his  decision  upon  the 
fact  that  Wilkes  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  and 
could  not  therefore  be  arrested  for  anything  but 
treason,  felony,  or  breach  of  the  peace,  under  none  of 
which  categories  was  included  the  crime  of  seditious 
libel.  But  tin-  invalidity  of  General  Warrants  was 
expressly  asserted  a  year  or  two  later  by  the  great 
Lord  Mansfield,  in  the  course  of  actions  in  which 
several  of  the  other  persons  arrested  recovered  heavy 
damages  against  Lord  Halifax  and  his  agents. 

Nothing  daunted  by  its  first  rebuff,  the  Court 
began  a  regular  criminal  prosecution  against  Wilkes 
for  seditious  libel.  In  this  step  it  was,  of  course, 
legally  justified,  for  Chief  Justice  Pratt's  decision 
had  merely  pronounced  against  the  regularity  of 
the  procedure,  not  against  the  substance  of  the 
charge.  Hut  the  King's  impatience  would  not  allow 
him  to  await  the  regular  issue  of  proceedings.  On 
the  re-assembling  of  Parliament  in  November,  1763, 
he  sent  a  royal  message,  calling  the  attention  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  the  alleged  libel.  The  Mouse 
promptly  responded  to  the  hint,  and  passed  two 
resolutions,  the  first  denouncing  the  article  in  No.  45 
as  a  false,  scandalous,  and  malicious  libel,  and  the 
second  alleging  that  privilege  of  Parliament  did  not 
extend  to  such  cases. 

The  bias  of  the  House  in  these  proceedings  was 
evident.  The  first  resolution  was  entirely  outside 
tin-  scope  of  its  authority,  for  it  was  an  attempt  by 
a  non-judicial  body  to  anticipate  the  decision  of  a 
question  which,  at  that  very  moment,  was  pending  in 


CHIEF  JUSTICE   PRATT   (CAMDEN)    (1713-I/94) 
Portrait  by  Hopwood. 


200  A    PATRIOT   kINC 

a  regular  Court  of  Justice.  I  he  second  was  a  direct 
reversal  of  the  steady  policy  of  the  House  during  the 
past  two  centuries,  in  which  it  had  striven,  by  every 
means  in  its  power,  to  extend  the  area  of  privilege, 
even  to  the  extent  of  protecting,  not  merely  members, 
but  their  families  and  servants,  from  arrest.  More- 
over, it  was  entirely  contrary  to  the  tacts  of  history. 

Hut  the  subservience  of  Ministers  and  Parliament 
did  not  stop  at  this  point.  During  the  proceedings 
it  was  whispered  that  Wilkes  had  composed  an 
obscene  poem,  entitled  An  Essay  on  Woman,  for 
the  delectation  of  the  choice  spirits  of  die  Medmen- 
ham  Club.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  Wilkes  did  really  compose  the  poem;  but, 
at  any  rate,  it  is  clear  that  he  did  not  publish  it, 
and  could  not  therefore  be  guilty  of  libel.  The 
Government,  however,  by  the  employment  of  its 
favourite  methods,  succeeded  in  getting  some  of  the 
proof-sheets  from  Wilkes's  printer;  and  the  House  of 
Lords  was  edified  by  hearing  Lord  Sandwich,  who 
certainly  knew  more  of  the  matter  than  most  people, 
descant  at  large  upon  the  wickedness  of  his  former 
associate,  and  virtuously  demand  prosecution  of  the 
offender. 

Before  this  time,  however,  worse  had  happened. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  annals  of  England  are  not 
\\\:c  from  instances  of  judicial  murder;  but  it  was 
long  since  an  English  Ministry  hail  resorted  to  the 
plan  of  private  assassination.  Vet  in  November,  1763, 
Martin,  a  well-known  agent  of  Bute,  ostentatiously 
forced  upon  Wilkes  a  duel  in  which  Wilkes  was 
gravely,    it    was    long    thought     mortally,  wounded. 


THE    GRMNVILLE   MINISTRY  201 

There  is,  of  course,  no  direct  proof  that  Martin  was 
employed  by  the  Court  or  the  Ministry.  But  there  is 
proof  that  he  had  long  and  deliberately  prepared 
himself  for  the  duel,  that  he  forced  it  deliberately  on 
Wilkes,  that,  though  the  challenger,  he  insisted  on 
the  choice  of  weapons  ;  and  it  is  undeniably  true  that, 
though  Wilkes  petitioned  the  House  for  delay  on 
account  of  his  illness,  his  petition  was  rejected,  and 
sentence  of  expulsion  passed  in  January,  1764,  while 
the  Government,  during  his  absence,  proceeded  to 
outlaw  him  in  the  King's  Bench  on  the  charge  of 
libel.  Thus  the  King,  both  Houses  of  Parliament, 
and  the  Ministers,  combined  to  ruin  a  single  indivi- 
dual, whose  one  real  offence  had  been  that  of  criti- 
cising a  public  act  of  government.  Such  an  open 
display  of  tyranny  provoked  the  strongest  feeling 
throughout  the  country.  The  attacks  of  the  Press 
became  more  violent,  and  were  met  by  relentless 
prosecutions,  while  the  most  shameless  corruption  was 
resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a  docile 
majority  in  the  Commons.  Thus,  as  Burke  points 
out,  the  House,  one  of  whose  most  important  func- 
tions it  was  to  criticise  and  control  the  Court,  became 
a  mere  engine  for  carrying  out  its  behests. 

On  the  Grenville  Ministry  falls  also  the  respon- 
sibility of  taking  the  first  steps  in  that  disastrous 
policy,  which  in  later  years  led  to  the  fatal  breach 
with  the  American  colonies.  These  settlements,  after 
passing  through  various  initial  stages,  were  rapidly 
assuming  a  condition  of  great  prosperity.  The  steady 
growth  of  population  had  done  even  more  than  the 
victories    of  Pitt  to  decide  the  rivalry   for  the  New 


202  a  Patriot  kinc, 

World  in  favour  of  Britain.  With  the  exception  of 
Georgia,  the  American  colonies  had  all  become  self- 
supporting;  and  the  wise  liberality  of  the  preceding 

half  century  had  gradually  converted  the  old  proprie- 
tary interests  into  free  and  self-governing  communi- 
ties.  Judged  impartially,  and  with  due  allowance  for 
the  ideas  of  the  time,  the  policy  of  the  mother  country 
seems  to  have  been  neither  oppressive  nor  ungenerous. 
The  elaborate  provisions  of  the  Navigation  .Acts, 
introduced  by  the  Commonwealth  and  adopted  at 
the  Restoration,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  world  to  the  English  mer- 
cantile marine,  were  re-enacted,  after  the  Revolution, 
in  [696.  The  system  was  a  bad  one;  for  it  involved 
the  maintenance  of  an  arm)-  of  preventive  officials, 
and  imposed  annoying  restrictions  upon  the  natural 
development  of  industry.  But  there  is  to  be  said  in 
its  favour,  that  it  was  undoubtedly  to  the  permanent 
interest  of  the  American  colonies  that  their  energies 
should  be  directed  to  the  immediate  development  of 
their  vast  territories,  rather  than  to  international  com- 
merce, and  that  the  Navigation  .Acts  did  undoubtedly 
succeed  in  producing  a  vast  increase  of  the  English 
shipping.  At  first  the  English  monopoly  of  the 
colonial  trade  had  been  confined  to  enumerated 
articles;  but,  as  new  products  made  their  appear- 
ance— rice,  molasses,  beaver  skins,  copper  ore  these 
were  added  to  the  list,  until  it  became  accepteel  as  a 
principle  of  British  commerce,  that  the  whole  of  the 
colonial  export  trade  should  be  in  English  hands. 
As  a  compensation  to  the  colonies,  the  growth  of 
tobacco  in  Great  Britain  and  the  Channel  Islands  had 


COLONIAL    TRADE  203 

been  entirely  prohibited,  so  that  the  whole  of  the  vast 
and  increasing  demand  for  tobacco  in  Great  Britain 
was  supplied  from  the  colonies  ;  and  a  long  series  of 
statutes  was  passed  for  the  encouragement  of  Ameri- 
can enterprise,  by  the  gift  of  bounties  on  the  import 
from  the  colonies  of  tar,  hemp,  timber  and  other  naval 
stores,  coffee,  and  indigo,  and  for  the  rebate  of  duty 
on  new  colonial  produce,  such  as  silk,  flax,  whale  oil, 
iron,  and  pearl  ash.  Best  of  all,  the  growth  of  the 
commercial  spirit  in  England  during  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  jealousy  of  prero- 
gative manifested  by  Parliament,  had  prevented  the 
English  colonial  system  assuming,  as  that  of  'France 
had  done,  the  character  of  a  religious  or  military 
mission,  or,  like  that  of  Holland,  of  a  jealous  official 
monopoly.  So  far  as  their  internal  affairs  were 
concerned,  the  colonists,  on  the  mainland  at  any  rate, 
governed  themselves  pretty  much  as  they  pleased. 
The  so-called  "  sugar  colonies,"  Jamaica,  Barbadoes, 
and  the  West  Indies  generally,  having  been  acquired 
by  conquest,  were  far  more  under  the  control  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  ;  and  were,  accordingly,  the  special 
favourites  of  the  Crown. 

Of  two  very  serious  grievances  the  colonists  had, 
however,  to  complain.  As  their  products  grew  in 
volume,  it  often  happened  that  the  mother  country 
was  unable  to  absorb  them  all.  The  natural  result 
would  have  been,  that  the  surplus  should  be  de- 
voted to  the  extension  of  foreign  trade  ;  but  this  the 
restrictions  of  the  Navigation  Acts  forbade,  except 
in  the  costly  form  of  re-exportation  from  England. 
.Accordingly,  a  great  smuggling  trade  grew  up  between 


204  ■'    PATRIOT  KING 

the  mainland  colonies,  which  grew  little  sugar,  and 
the  French  West  Indian  islands,  which,  in  return  for 
the  horses,  timber,  and  other  produce  of  America, 
sent  to  the  mainland  sugar,  molasses,  and  rum.  A 
desperate  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  English  West 
India  colonies  to  crush  this  technically  illegal  trade 
was  defeated  in  i / 33  by  the  vigilance  of  Sir  John 
Barnard,  a  man  to  whose  enlightened  appreciation  of 
sound  principles  of  commerce  England  owes  much  ; 
and  the  West  Indians  had  to  be  contented  with  the 
establishment  of  a  protective  system  which,  bad  as  it 
was,  at  least  had  the  merit  of  implicitly  recognising 
the  direct  trade  between  the  French  West  Indies  and 
America.  It  has  also  been  mentioned  (p.  147)  that 
Walpole,  about  the  same  time,  took  the  admirable 
step  of  setting  free  the  rice  trade  of  the  Carolina*,  by 
allowing  the  direct  export  from  those  colonies  to 
luiropean  ports  in  British  vessels.  But,  in  spite  of 
these  palliations,  the  grievance  of  the  Navigation 
Acts  pressed  with  increasing  severity  on  the  growing 
industries  of  America. 

The  second  great  cause  of  complaint,  and  one 
which  was  in  no  way  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
Navigation  policy,  arose  from  the  determined  hostility 
manifested  by  British  manufacturers  to  the  develop- 
ment of  manufactures  in  the  colonies.  That  pro- 
tective duties  should  have  been  imposed  at  British 
ports  on  the  products  of  American  factories,  was  fully 
in  accordance  with  the  orthodox  political  economy 
of  the  day.  But  the  British  Parliament,  at  the 
instigation  of  the  manufacturers,  went  much  further. 
In    the    year     173-,     during     Walpole's     tenure     of 


BRITISH   COMMERCIAL   JEALOUSY  205 

jffice,  an  Act  of  Parliament  totally  prohibited  the 
export  of  felts  and  hats  from  any  British  plantation, 
and  even  subjected  the  manufacture  for  home  con- 
sumption to  vexatious  restrictions.  In  1750,  the 
manufacture  of  iron  in  the  colonies  was  totally  pro- 
hibited ;  and  it  was  even  enacted,  that  if  any  mill  or 
forge  were  erected,  it  should  be  destroyed  as  a 
common  nuisance.  It  was  evident  from  these  statutes, 
that  the  British  policy  towards  colonial  industries 
was  to  be  steadily  directed  towards  maintaining  them 
in  a  state  of  perpetual  infancy. 

Such  was  the  legal  relationship  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  American  colonies  on  the  assumption 
of  office  by  Grenville  in  1763.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten,  that  Pitt's  victories  on  the  American  con- 
tinent, by  shattering  the  power  of  the  French,  had 
relieved  the  colonies  from  a  fear  which  had,  perhaps 
more  than  anything  else,  disposed  them  to  cling  to 
the  mother  country.  Now  that  this  constant  anxiety 
was  removed,  the  colonists  were  more  at  leisure  to 
criticise  the  restrictions  which  hampered  their  grow- 
ing trade,  and  less  disposed  to  submit  quietly  to  the 
dictates  of  British  commercial  jealousy. 

A  wise  statesman  would  have  foreborne  to 
aggravate  the  dangers  of  an  already  dangerous 
situation.  But  Grenville  was  not  a  wise  statesman. 
His  narrow  mind  had,  even  before  his  assumption  of 
the  reins  of  power,  been  annoyed  by  the  frequent 
evasions  of  the  Navigation  Acts  at  which  his  wiser 
predecessors  had  connived.  Even  as  First  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  in  Bute's  Ministry,  he  had  gone  out  of 
his   way  to    recommend    a  vigorous    enforcement   of 


206  .•/    PATRIOT   KING 

the  law  ;  and  his  remonstrances  had  been  successful 
in  producing"  a  strong  feeling  of  irritation  among  the 
colonists.  Hut  now  he  determined  on  a  bolder  line. 
In  the  year  1764  he  introduced  into  Parliament  a 
Rill  imposing  Customs'  duties  on  the  importation  of 
foreign  commodities  into  America.  The  fallacy  by 
which  he  attempted  to  justify  this  new  departure  was 
exposed  with  merciless  severity  by  Burke,  in  his  great 
speech  on  American  Taxation,  delivered  in  1774. 
Grenville  alleged,  that  he  had  but  followed  the 
innumerable  precedents  of  the  statute  book  in 
framing  his  measure.  Burke  pointed  out  that,  in 
reality,  Grenville's  Act  for  the  first  time  attempted 
to  raise  a  revenue  for  Great  Britain  from  the 
American  colonies,  that  the  earlier  statutes  had 
doubtless  been  in  form  Revenue  Acts,  but  that  then- 
penalty  clauses  had  been  inserted,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  raising  revenue,  but  solely  for  the  purpose  <»f 
regulating  commerce  according  to  the  mistaken  but 
generally  accepted  ideas  of  the  time.  Even  the  pre- 
amble of  Grenville's  own  Act  gave  him  the  lie.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Navigation  Acts 
a  measure,  alleged  to  be  in  support  of  that  policy,had 
adopted  the  phraseology  of  a  regular  Bill  of  Supply. 
The  total  produce  of  the  old  "'Plantation  Duties"  (as 
the  revenue  penalties  for  infringement  of  the  Arts 
were  called  had  been  a  contemptible  sum,  hardly 
sufficient  to  build  a  single  man-of-war  ;  and  no  one 
knew  the  fact  better  than  George  Grenville.  Yet  his 
measure  spoke  openlj  of  the  justice  and  necessity  of 
making  the  colonies  contribute  to  the  expenses  of  a 
war   which   had   been    undertaken    largely  for   their 


GREMl'/l.f.RS    ACTS  207 

benefit  ;  and,  as  if  to  mark  a  definite  rupture  with 
the  old  traditions,  he  followed  up  his  first  measure 
with  an  announcement  of  the  intention  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  introduce,  in  the  following"  session,  a  second 
Bill,  which  bv  no  conceivable  ingenuity  could  be 
brought  within  the  scope  of  the  Navigation  Acts — a 
Bill,  namely,  for  the  imposition  of  stamp  duties  on 
legal  documents  used  in  the  colonies.  This  measure, 
which,  it  may  here  be  said,  was  duly  passed  in  the 
year  1765,  was  peculiarly  iniquitous  ;  for  at  that  time, 
by  the  long-established  policy  of  the  nation,  the 
stamp  duties  on  legal  documents  were  devoted  to 
the  payment  of  the  expenses  of  the  administration 
of  justice.  And  these  expenses  were,  in  th/j  colonies, 
already  paid  out  of  colonial  funds. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  dwell  on  the  hollowness 
of  the  other  arguments  advanced  by  Grenville  in 
justification  of  his  measures.  Great  Britain  had  not 
expended  vast  sums  in  the  war  for  the  sake  of  the 
colonies,  but  for  her  own.  Having,  by  her  deliberate 
policy,  deprived  the  colonies  of  all  chance  of  creating 
a  navy  of  their  own,  she  had  found  herself  compelled, 
on  pain  of  losing  her  lucrative  possessions,  to  defend 
them  herself.  On  the  other  hand,  the  colonies  had 
made  vast  sacrifices  in  men  and  money  during  the 
war.  Governor  Bernard,  of  Massachusetts,  a  strong 
loyalist,  told  Grenville  that  his  colony  was  paying 
£37,500  a  year  towards  the  reduction  of  its  war 
debt,  and  that  the  other  colonies  were  suffering 
in  proportion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  finances 
of  Great  Britain  were  thoroughly  prosperous.  The 
war  had  resulted  in  a  great  development  of  foreign 


208  .-/    PATRIOT   KING 

commerce,  and  there  was  no  sort  of  necessity  for 
desperate  measures.  It  seems  almost  impossible  to 
assign  more  than  two  equally  discreditable  motives 
for  Grenville's  policy.  The  King  may  have  hoped 
that  the  anticipated  revenue  would  go  to  increase 
the  Civil  List,  and  thus  enable  him  to  develope  his 
favourite  plan  of  corruption.1  But  it  is  more-  than 
probable  that  the  real  motive  was  an  obstinate  and 
narrow-minded  determination  to  enforce  what  the 
King  and  Grenville  believed  to  be  the  legal  rights 
of  the  mother  country,  regardless  of  consequences. 
In  the  emphatic  words  of  Burke,  the  new  policy  was 
"a  revenue,  not  substituted  in  the  place  of,  but  added 
to,  monopoly  ;  which  monopoly  was  at  the  same- 
time  enforced  with  additional  strictness,  and  the 
execution   put  into  military  hands." 

Needless  to  say,  the  Acts  were  received  with  furious 
indignation,  not  only  in  America,  but  in  commercial 
circles  in  England,  whose  members  foresaw  the  ruin 
of  a  valuable  colonial  trade  if  they  were  enforced. 
For  the  colonies  did  not  content  themselves  with 
sending  formal  petitions  against  the  measures — 
petitions  which  were  received  with  contemptuous 
indifference  by  the  Ministry ;  they  took  vigorous 
measures  to  establish  what  would  now  be  called 
an  universal  boycott  of  goods  shipped  in  British 
vessels,  and  of  the  obnoxious  stamp  duties.  The 
complete  success  of  their  measures  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact,  that  the  total  produce  of  the  American 

1  In  the  P.ill  as  actually  passed  the  fund  was  reserved  for  the  disposal 
ol  Parliament,  i"  be  expended  t"i  the  benefit  <>i  tin-  Colonies.  Bui 
this  ma)   have  been  an  afterthought  of  the  Ministers. 


FALL    OF   GRENVILLE  2O0 

duties,  during  the  two  years  of  their  continuance, 
was  less  than  £4,000  ;  the  expenses  of  their  adminis- 
tration amounted  to  £6,837.  Burke  has  vividly 
depicted  for  us  the  scene  in  the  lobby  of  the  House 
of  Commons  which  followed  on  the  repeal  of  the 
measures;  and  the  enthusiasm  of  that  moment  is 
the  surest  index  to  the  resentment  aroused  by  the 
measures  themselves.  But  apparently,  nothing  less 
than  a  quarrel  with  the  King  could  have  disturbed 
Grenville's  power.  Happily  a  quarrel  of  that  kind 
supervened  at  the  critical   moment. 

In  the  spring  of  1765  George  III.  showed  the  first 
alarming  symptom  of  that  terrible  illness  which  was 
to  cloud  his  later  years  with  a  veil  of  tragedy.  It 
became  necessary  to  provide  for  the  chance  of  a 
Regency.  Grenville,  to  whom,  as  chief  Minister,  the 
task  of  framing  the  necessary  measure  fell,  worded  it 
so  loosely,  that  serious  doubts  arose  as  to  the  persons 
in  whom  the  Regency  was  really  to  be  vested.  In 
the  debate  in  the  Lords,  Bedford  and  Halifax,  two  of 
the  Ministers,  succeeded  in  procuring  the  exclusion 
of  the  name  of  the  Princess  Dowager,  the  King's 
mother;  and  Grenville,  though  passionately  entreated 
by  the  King,  refused  to  move  an  amendment,  revers- 
ing the  exclusion,  in  the  Commons.  What  was  the 
precise  motive  of  Grenville's  obstinacy  it  is  difficult 
to  discover1  ;   Bedford  and   Halifax  were,  no  doubt, 

1  His  own  account  {Grenville  Papers,  vol.  ii.)  is  that,  as  the  omission 
had  been  sanctioned  in  the  Lords  by  Halifax  and  Sandwich  with  the 
express  permission  of  the  King,  an  amendment  by  a  .Minister  in  the 
Commons  would  cause  an  appearance  of  disunion  among  the  members 
of  the  Government. 

15 


210  A    PATRI07    KING 

a<  tuated  by  hatred  of  Bute.  But  the  working  of  the 
new  system  was  triumphantly  vindicated,  when  the 
House  of  Commons,  instigated  by  the  secret  agents 
of  the  Court,  defeated  its  own  nominal  leader,  and 
insisted  on  inserting  the  name  of  the  Princess  in  the 
measure.  A  similar  defeat  would,  both  before  and 
after  1765,  have  been  the  signal  for  the  Minister's 
resignation  ;  but  it  is  significant  of  the  change  which 
was  coming  over  politics  that  Grenville,  though  he 
had  forfeited  the  favour  both  of  the  King  and  the 
Mouse,  clung  to  his  office.  The  King,  however,  was 
determined  to  get  rid  of  him,  and,  after  a  desperate 
struggle  of  three  months,  succeeded  in  finding  a 
successor.  In  Jul)-,  1765,  Grenville  retired,  having, 
during  his  two  years  of  office,  sown  a  harvest  of 
dragon's  teeth,  destined  in  a  few  years  to  plunge 
the  kingdom  into  foreign  and  colonial  war,  and  in- 
ternal strife.  lie  had  attempted  to  trample  on  the 
liberty  of  the  subject,  to  violate  the  privileges  of 
Parliament,  and  to  override  the  first  principles  of 
political  freedom.  He  was  unpopular  himself,  his 
colleagues  wore  unpopular,  he  had  done  much  to 
weaken  loyalty  to  the  throne,  and  he  had  even  shaken 
the  very  pillars  of  the  State  by  raising  doubts  of  the 
sovereign  authority  of  the  Crown  in  Parliament.  It 
was  not  a  happy  beginning  for  a  new  system  of 
government. 


VIII 


Till:     KING  S    FRIENDS 


Till':   fall   of   the   Grenville   Ministry  produced   an 
immediate  change  in   the  conduct  of  affairs.     After 
vainly  trying  to  induce  Pitt  to  accept  office,  the  King 
was    at    last    compelled    to    call    in    the    Marquis    of 
Rockingham,    a    young    nobleman    of    no    particular 
abilities,    but    of    high    personal    character,  and    the 
avowed     representative    of    the    Whig    tradition    of 
government.     There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Rock- 
ingham's   idea    was    to    restore    the    Cabinet    to    the 
commanding  position  which  it  had  occupied  during 
the    Pelham    and    Newcastle    Ministries.      The    old 
Duke  of  Newcastle  himself  accepted  office  as  Privy 
Seal,  and,  for  the  last  time  in  his  long  career,  enjoyed 
his  favourite  pleasure  of  dispensing  patronage.     The 
great  Whig  Dukes,  Rutland,  Portland,  and  Grafton, 
were  included.     The  management  of  the  Commons 
was   entrusted   to   General   Conway,  a   distinguished 
soldier,  but  not   a   very  good   debater  ;   and  he  was 
supported    in    the    House    by   Dowcleswell,  the    new 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  who,  if  he  was  not  a 


_'!_•  Tin-    KINGS   FRIENDS 

man  of  first-rate  ability,  was  at  least  a  great  improve- 
ment on  Sir  Francis  Dashwood.  Somewhat  foolishly, 
Rockingham  allowed  the  Great  Seal  to  remain  in  the 
hands  of  Lord  Xorthington,  instead  of  making  the 
obvious  choice  of  Lord  Camden.  The  popularity  of 
Lord  Granby,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  lent  addi- 
tional strength  to  the  Government  ;  but  its  great  good 
fortune  lay  in  the  support  of  Pitt,  who,  though  he 
declined  to  accept  office,  gave  his  heart}'  approval  to 
its  measures. 

It  was  by  this  time  clear  that  the  American  opposi- 
tion to  the  Grenville  measures  was  a  very  serious 
thing.  The  .Assemblies  of  Virginia,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Massachusetts,  the  three  leading  colonies,  passed 
resolutions  strongly  condemning  the  Stamp  Act. 
Letters  from  unquestionable  sources  described  the 
condition  of  the  chief  towns,  especially  Boston,  as 
one  of  continued  menace  and  tumult.  The  Governors 
attempted  to  call  out  the  Militia  to  repress  the  dis- 
orders; the  Militia  refused  to  respond.  The  disaffec- 
tion spread  to  Connecticut,  Providence,  and  Rhode 
Island,  and  even  to  Carolina.  The  stamp  officers, 
many  of  them  Americans,  were  forced  to  resign  their 
appointments.  Most  significant  of  all,  there  were 
proposals  for  a  general  congress  of  the  colonies,  to 
act  independently  of  all  constituted  authority. 

Put  the  protests  were  not  confined  to  the  colonies. 
To  the  amazement  and  indignation  of  Grenville,  who 
had  not  foreseen  that  his  favourite  measures  might 
injure  the  English  merchant  no  less  than  the 
American  planter,  the  great  commercial  towns  of 
England  began  to  petition  against  his  policy.    London 


LORD   ROCKINGHAM   (1730-1782). 

Portrait  by  B.  Wilson. 


214  THE    KINGS   FRIENDS 

led  the  way,  and  was  speedily  followed  by  Birming- 
ham, Wolverhampton,  Coventry.  Dudley,  Maccles- 
field, Newcastle  -  on  -  Tyne,  Nottingham,  Glasgow, 
Liverpool.  Halifax,  Leeds,  and  Manchester.  Their 
trade,  the  merchants  urged,  was  being  ruined  by  the 
suppression  of  the  intercolonial  commerce,  and  by 
the  hostility  produced  by  the  Stamp  Act.  Finally, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  examined  at  great  length  by  a 
Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  stoutly  main- 
tained, that  the  Act  was  not  only  unjust,  but  utterly 
unpractical,  that  the  means  of  distributing  the  stamps 
did  not,  in  main-  cases,  exist,1  and  could  not  be 
established  except  at  a  cost  which  would  more  than 
swallow  up  the  returns.  With  great  ingenuity,  he 
contended  that  the  colonies  were  completely  qualified 
to  produce  all  the  necessaries  of  life  for  their  own 
consumption  ;  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that 
they  would  rather  go  without  luxuries  than  import 
them  from  the  mother  country.  Ills,  testimony  to 
the  feeling  produced  by  the  Act  was  clear  and 
unwavering.  "The  temper  of  the  colonies  towards 
England  before  1763  was  the  best  in  the  world.  .  .  . 
Natives  of  Britain  were  always  treated  with  particular 
regard  ;  to  be  an  Old  England  man  was  of  itself  a 
character  of  some  respect,  and  gave  a  kind  of  rank 
among  us."  Now  the  temper  was  "very  much 
altered."  The  respect  for  Parliament  was  "greatly 
lessened."  If  the  Act  were  not  repealed,  there  would 
be  "a  total  loss  of  the  respect  and  affection  the 
people  of  America   bear   to   this  country,  and  of  all 

Franklin  \\;is  peculiarly  qualified  to  speak  mi  this  point,  as  he  was 
Postmaster  General  oJ   X  <  >  1 1  h  Americq, 


REPEAL    OF   THE   STAMP   ACT  21  5 

the    commerce    that    depends    on    that    respect    and 
affection." 

The  new  Ministry  determined  on  conciliatory- 
measures.  Even  before  the  meeting  of  Parliament, 
in  December,  1765,  Conway,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
sent  a  temperately  worded  circular  to  the  Governors 
of  the  colonies,  deprecating  the  disorders,  and  in- 
sisting on  a  firm  front,  but  suggesting  prudence,  and 
hinting  at  a  reconsideration  of  the  offending  measures. 
The  report  that  Pitt  had  accepted  office  had  already 
been  received  with  enthusiasm  in  America,  and,  in 
spite  of  their  disappointment  at  its  contradiction,  the 
colonists  augured  well  from  the  fall  of  Grenville.  The 
chief  difficulty  lay  in  the  obstinacy  of  the  King;  but 
Rockingham  at  last,  by  the  promise  of  a  Declaratory 
Bill,  which  should  assert  the  abstract  right  of  the 
Crown  in  Parliament  to  make  laws  for  the  colonies 
in  all  cases,  succeeded  in  procuring  his  consent  to  the 
introduction  of  repeal.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
House  of  Commons  had  never  taken  any  warm 
interest  in  the  Stamp  Act.  It  had  been  a  purely 
Ministerial  measure,  accepted  without  a  thought  of 
its  consequences ;  and  the  motion  for  repeal  was 
voted  by  a  majority  of  over  a  hundred.  In  the 
Lords  there  was  some  difficult}-.  A  series  of  hostile 
conditions,  b  eathing  fire  and  slaughter  against  the 
colonists,  were  moved  by  Lord  Bottetort,  a  creature 
of  Bute,  and  supported  by  the  great  authority  of 
Lord  Mansfield.  The  House  readily  passed  the 
Declarator}-  Bill,  in  spite  of  an  eloquent  opposition 
by  Lord  Camden  ;  but  the  second  reading  of  the 
repealing  measure  was  only  carried  by  a  majority  of 


2  I  6  THE    KING'S    FX/FXDS 

twelve,  and   both   on   the    committal    and    the    third 

reading-  numerous  protests  were  entered.  But  the 
popular  enthusiasm  which  greeted  the  royal  assent  to 
the  measure  was  an  unmistakable  index  of  the 
feelings  of  the  nation  ;  and  it  is,  perhaps,  worth}-  a 
passing  notice  that,  in  the  statute  roll,  the  repealing 
statute  takes  precedence  of  the  formal  Declaratory 
Act. 

It  was  not,  however,  to  be  supposed,  that  the  King- 
would  tolerate,  for  a  single  day  longer  than  necessity 
compelled  him,  the  existence  of  a  Ministry  which 
had  thus  humbled  his  pride  ;  and  it  is  with  a  deep 
sense  of  pain  that  the  admirers  of  Pitt  are  compelled 
to  own,  that  he  it  was  who  rendered  possible  the 
change  which  followed.  Even  before  the  adjourn- 
ment of  Parliament,  in  April,  1766,  Grafton  resigned 
office.  It  is  but  fair  to  him  to  state  that  he  had  con- 
sistently maintained  that,  without  l'itt,  no  Adminis- 
tration could  be  really  strong  ;  hut  this  excuse 
hardly  justified  him  in  deserting  a  Ministry  of 
which,  knowing  of  Pitt's  refusal  to  join  it,  he  had 
become  a  member  but  a  few  months  before.  Rockinsi- 
ham  induced  the  Duke  of  Richmond  to  take  his  place  ; 
and  the  Ministry  succeeded,  before  the  end  of  the 
session,  in  passing  a  resolution  declaring  the  illegality 
nf  General  Warrants.  Hut  they  gave  still  further 
offence  to  the  King  by  refusing  to  ask  the  House  for 
a  grant  for  his  younger  brother,  and  when  Parliament 
rose,  on  June  6th,  it  was  well  understood  that  the  life 
of  the  Ministry  depended  solely  on  the  inability  of 
the  King  to  induce  others  to  become  their  successors. 
The  final  blow    came  in  July,  when   Northington,  the 


PITT  IN   OFFICE  21/ 

Chancellor,  with  almost  unexampled  treachery,  sought 
a  private  interview  with  the  King,  and  persuaded 
him  to  dismiss  his  (the  Chancellor's)  own  colleagues, 
at  the  same  time  offering  to  be  the  bearer  of  a 
message  to  Pitt.  By  this  proceeding  he  earned  for 
himself  a  place  in  the  new  Ministry,  and  the  just 
contempt  of  his  own  and  subsequent  times. 

It  is  possible,  and  due  weight  must  be  given  to 
the  possibility,  that  Pitt  believed  the  King  to  be 
honestly  willing  to  entrust  real  power  to  the  hands 
of  his  responsible  Ministers.  His  position  at  the 
time  was  certainly  one  of  undeserved  neglect.  He 
had  refused  office  at  the  fall  of  the  Grenville  Ministry 
solely  because  Temple  declined  to  join  him.  Since 
that  refusal,  Temple,  instead  of  reciprocating  the 
great  sacrifice  made  by  his  brother-in-law,  had 
openly  sided  with  his  own  brother,  Grenville,  on  the 
American  question.1  On  one  of  the  most  important 
subjects  of  the  day.  Temple  and  Pitt  were  therefore 
at  daggers  drawn.  Pitt  had  no  Quixotic  contempt 
of  office,  and  he  must  have  felt  that  he  had  been 
cheated  out  of  a  glorious  opportunity  which  lay  ready 
to  his  hand.  As  has  been  said,  he  had  allowed  him- 
self to  use  the  language  of  the  Court  with  respect  to 
the  iniquities  of  party  government.  His  loyalty  to 
his  former  friends  was  shown  by  the  generous  offer 
which  he  made  to  Temple  of  the  most  dignified  place 
in  the  new  Administration.  But  Temple  would  be 
content  with   nothing   less   than    an    equal    share  of 

1  Very  characteristically,  Temple  had  celebrated  the  reconciliation 
by  presenting  his  brother  with  a  sum  of  ,£1,000.  [Grenville  Paper'!, 
iii.  p.  227.) 


I.'  THE    KING'S   FRIENDS 


power  ;  and  Pitt,  who,  nut  unnaturally,  considered 
that  the  man  entrusted  with  the  task  of  naming  a 
Ministry  should  be  its  real  head,  refused  the  demand, 
and  thus  lost  the  last  chance  of  forming  a  really 
p(  iwerful  Government. 

Thus  was  formed  that  ill-fated  Ministry  which, 
though  sanctioned  by  the  great  name  of  Pitt,  was 
destined  to  take  its  place  in  history  as  one  of  the 
most  disastrous  in  our  annals.  The  Whig  doctrines 
of  independence  and  liberality  were  represented  by 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  the  nominal  head  of  the 
Government,  by  Camden,  who  became  Chancellor, 
and  by  Conway,  who  retained  his  office  of  Secretary 
of  State.  The  traitor  Northington  was  President  of 
the  Council.  The  other  secretaryship  of  State  was 
given  to  Shelburne,  a  nobleman  who  posed  as  a 
warm  admirer  of  Pitt,  and  who  professed  to  share  his 
leader's  present  distrust  of  part}'  connection,  but 
whose  undoubted  abilities  were  heavily  discounted 
by  the  fact  that  no  one  believed  in  his  honest}'.  But 
the  strangest  feature  in  this  ill-assorted  combination 
was  the  fact  that  the  leadership  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  with  the  increasingly  important  office  of 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  was  reserved,  not  for 
Pitt,  nor  even  for  Conway,  but  for  Charles  Towns- 
hend,  a  brilliant  young  aristocrat  who  treated  politics 
as  a  game  of  plunder,  and  who,  having  served  under 
Newcastle  and  Rockingham,  and  offered  to  serve 
under  Grenville,  was  now  equally  prepared  to  take 
office  under  a  statesman  whose  avowed  object  was 
to  break  down  the  Newcastle  and  Rockingham 
system,    and     who    had     destroyed     the     policy     of 


II/S    RETIREMENT  2IO. 

Grenville.  For  Pitt  himself,  to  the  astonishment 
and  dismay  of  his  supporters,  and  the  keen  delight 
of  his  enemies,  insisted  on  retiring  to  the  Lords  as 
Earl  of  Chatham,  professing  that  the  state  of  his 
health  did  not  permit  him  to  face  the  ordeal  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  or  to  undertake  official 
duties  more  onerous  than  those  of  the  Privy 
Seal. 

The  conduct  of  Pitt  (or,  as  we  must  now  call  him, 
Chatham)  at  this  point,  and  during  the  next  few 
years,  has  long  been  a  mystery.  As  is  well  known, 
he  retired  almost  immediately  from  active  politics, 
and  left  his  distracted  colleagues  to  plunge  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  mire.  Ill-health  was  alleged, 
and  doubtless  with  some  reason,  as  the  cause  of  this 
strange  conduct.  But  it  is  clear  that  his  malady  was 
at  least  as  much  mental  as  physical.  Like  Pulteney 
before  him,  he  had  been  trapped  into  a  false  position  ; 
and  remorse  and  disappointment  preyed  upon  his 
mind.  Long  years  afterwards  he  urged,  with  pas- 
sionate vehemence,  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  the 
flattering  assurances  of  the  King,  that  he  had  dis- 
covered, almost  immediately  on  entering  office,  that 
the  secret  influence  which  had  undermined  Grenville 
and  Rockingham,  still  continued,  and  was  intended 
by  the  King  to  continue,  to  guide  the  affairs  of  the 
nation.  But  nothing  save  an  overweening  confidence 
in  his  own  powers,  or  a  deplorable  want  of  insight, 
could  have  led  him  to  such  a  position.  He  was  no 
child  in  politics,  lie  had  experienced  once  before 
the  utter  impossibility  of  standing  alone  against  the 
forces  of  corruption  and  combination.       The  glittering 


2  20  THE   KINGS   FRIENDS 

bait    had   been   dangled    before    his    eyes.      He    was 
tempted,  and  he  fell. 

The  results  were  disastrous,  not  only  to  Chatham's 
reputation,  but  to  his  country.     Left  to  his  own  de- 
vices, Townshend  could  think  of  no  better  plan  of  heal- 
ing the  American  sore  than  an  addition  to  the  existing 
Customs'    duties.       It    should    be    noted    that    the 
Rockingham    Ministry  had  not  procured  the  repeal 
of    Grenville's     Customs    Act,  which,    by   a    curious 
irony  of  fate,  remained  on  the  statute  book  until  the 
year  1867.     But  Townshend  gaily  proposed  to  go  far 
beyond    Grenville's    modest    scheme,    and,  with    the 
complete  approval  of  the  King's  friends,  introduced 
and    carried  an    Act  imposing   additional  duties   on 
glass,  paper,  red  and  white  lead,  painters'  colours,  and 
tea.      His   death  followed  almost  immediately  after 
this  event ;  but  his  policy  was  ably  continued  by  his 
successor,   Lord    North,   in   whom    at   last   the   King 
found  a  Minister  after  his  own  heart.     The  machinery 
of  the  Customs'  House  was  elaborated  and  extended 
to  the  colonies.     The  Constitution  of  New  York  was 
suspended,  on  the  plea  that  the  colony  had  not  obeyed 
the    provisions    of    an    Act    requiring    it    to    provide 
quarters  for  British  troops.      In  1767  the  enforcement 
of  the    new    legislation    was    taken    away    from   the 
ordinary  colonial  courts,  and  vested  in  the  prerogative 
tribunals  of  vice-admiralty,  which  were  being  rapidly 
established   in    America,  and  which   knew  nothing  of 
such    trifles  as  the  common    law   and    trial  by  jury. 
The  total  revenue  returns  from   this  suicidal  policy 
averaged  ,£1,000  a  year,  while  the  valuable  American 
trade  almost  entirely  disappeared. 


CopyrigiitJ 


[Sir  Benjamin  Stone. 

STATUE   OF    LOKI)    MANSFIELD   (1705-1793)    ST.    STEPHEN'S   HALL, 

WESTMINSTER. 

By  E.  H.  Bailey,  R.A. 


222  Till-    KINGS    FRIENDS 

Meantime,  another  embarrassing  question  had 
been  revived  by  the  reappearance  of  Wilkes.  Re- 
turning to  England  in  the  spring  of  the  year  176S, 
he  surrendered  on  the  judgment  of  outlawry,  and 
was  tried  on  the  original  charges  of  libel.  Lord 
Mansfield,  making  no  allowance  for  the  suffering's 
which  the  accused  had  already  undergone,  sentenced 
him  to  two  heavy  fines  of  £ 5CO  each,  in  respect  of 
No.  45  and  the  Essay  on  Woman,  ordered  him  to 
be  imprisoned  for  ten  months  on  the  first  charge 
and  twelve  months  on  the  latter  (the  sentences  t<> 
run  consecutively),  and  finally,  to  furnish  heavy  bail 
for  his  good  behaviour  for  seven  years  after  the 
expiry  of  his  imprisonment.  Wilkes  at  once  peti- 
tioned the  House  of  Commons  upon  his  privilege, 
he  having  before  his  trial  been  elected  member  for 
Middlesex  ;  and  in  his  petition  boldly  alleged  that 
the  records  of  the  proceedings  had  been  altered  by 
Lord  Mansfield  without  his  consent,  and  that  the 
solicitor  to  the  Treasury,  Philip  Webb,  had  suborned 
witnesses  at  the  trial.  Lord  North  skilfully  turned 
the  motion  for  privilege  into  a  shape  calculated  to 
raise  the  strongest  prejudice  against  the  petitioner  ; 
and  then,  having  procured  its  rejection  by  a  large 
majority,  insisted  on  confining  further  proceedings 
to  an  examination  of  the  allegations  against  Lord 
Mansfield  and  Webb.  Whilst  these  proceedings  were 
pending  in  the  Commons,  the  House  of  Lords,  at 
the  instigation  of  Lord  Mansfield  himself,  contemptu- 
ously rejected  an  appeal  brought  by  Wilkes  against 
the  judgment  of  the  King's  Bench,  though  it  raised 
the    very     debatable    question     of    the    legality     of 


THE.     WILKES   LIBELS  22 


.1 


criminal  informations  for  libel  ;  and,  on  the  resump- 
tion of  the  proceedings  in  the  Commons,  the  House, 
having  brushed  aside  the  allegations  against  Lord 
Mansfield  and  Webb,  proceeded  further  to  convict 
Wilkes,  on  his  own  confession,  of  a  third  libel,  written 
after  his  return  from  abroad,  in  the  pages  of  the  St. 
fames  s  C  hronide. 

Having  thus,  as  they  held,  furnished  themselves 
with  evidence  of  offences  committed  by  Wilkes,  not 
only  during  the  previous  Parliament  (which  might  be 
alleged  to  be  purged  by  his  sentence  in  the  King's 
Bench),  but  in  the  existing  session,  the  majority  pro- 
ceeded to  pass  a  fresh  resolution  of  expulsion.  The 
occasion  was  remarkable  for  the  delivery  of  a  masterly 
speech  by  Grenville,  who,  in  complete  defiance  of  his 
attitude  in  1763,  urged  upon  the  House  the  illegality 
and  impropriety  of  the  step.  After  making  a  dignified 
apology  for  his  change  of  views,  Grenville  pointed 
out  that  the  motion  alleged  four  grounds  of  complaint 
against  Wilkes — the  libel  in  No.  45,  the  Essay  on 
Woman,  the  existence  of  the  sentence  of  imprison- 
ment, which  would  necessarily  incapacitate  him  from 
attending  the  House  for  a  period  of  sixteen  months, 
and,  finally,  the  new  libel  on  Lord  Weymouth  in  the 
St.  James's  Chronicle.  He  dwelt  upon  the  injustice 
of  this  cumulation  of  charges,  made  in  the  hope  of 
catching  votes  on  different  grounds  ;  and  then  showed 
that  not  one  of  the  charges  taken  singly  would  justify 
the  motion,  and  that,  therefore,  all  four  taken  together 
could  not  do  so.  For  the  two  first  libels  Wilkes  had 
been  expelled  from  the  previous  Parliament  ;  and  it 
was  in  defiance  of  all  precedent  to  continue  a  sentence 


224  THE  KING  S   FRIENDS 

of  expulsion  after  a  General  Election.  The  sentence 
of  imprisonment,  he  also  showed  by  an  appeal  to 
precedent,  was  no  bar  to  membership.  The  fourth 
charge  had  never  been  proved  in  a  court  of  law,  and 
could  not,  therefore,  be  the  subject  of  proceedings 
in  the  House.  Finally,  the  speaker  dwelt,  with  pro- 
phetic foresight,  on  the  extreme  unwisdom  of  con- 
verting Wilkes  into  a  popular  hero,  pointed  out  the 
obvious  fact  that  nothing  would  please  the  accused 
better  than  a  sentence  of  expulsion,  which  he  had 
obviously  courted  by  his  arrogant  demeanour,  and 
suggested  that,  by  the  course  proposed,  the  House 
would  commit  itself  to  a  conflict  with  the  electors,  the 
end  of  which  no  man  could  foresee. 

Seldom  has  a  prophecy  been  more  rapidly  fulfilled. 
The  Middlesex  electors  at  once  took  up  Wilkes' 
cause.  A  meeting  called  by  his  opponents  at  the 
King's  Arms  was  mobbed  ;  an  Address  which  was  on 
its  way  to  the  King  was  captured  and  its  attendants 
insulted,  while  a  hostile  demonstration  forced  its  way 
into  the  precincts  of  St.  James  ;  the  Ministerial  candi- 
date at  the  new  election  was  so  terrified  that  he 
withdrew  his  nomination, and  Wilkes  was  triumphantly 
re-elected.  Thereupon  the  House,  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  after  expressions  by  Lord  North  so  out- 
rageous that  even  he  was  compelled  to  retract  them, 
declared  Wilkes  incapable  of  sitting  in  the  present 
Parliament,  and  ordered  a  writ  for  a  fresh  election. 
For  a  second  time  Wilkes  was  re-elected  without 
opposition.  To  rescue  the  House  from  what  was 
now  becoming  an  intolerable  position,  Colonel 
Luttrell,  who  had  already  distinguished   himself  by 


TRIUMPH    OF    WILKES  22^ 

his  violent  speeches  against  Wilkes  in  Parliament, 
resigned  his  seat  for  Bossiney,  and  came  forward  as 
Wilkes'  opponent  in  Middlesex.  The  act  required 
considerable  courage  ;  but  Luttrell  was  warmly  sup- 
ported by  the  Ministers,  who  took  special  precautions 
to  protect  him,  and  on  the  poll  he  managed  to  secure 
296  votes,  Wilkes  receiving  1,143.  T'le  sheriffs,  of 
course,  returned  Wilkes  once  more  as  duly  elected  ; 
but  the  House  ordered  them  to  attend  with  the 
polling  books,  and  then,  in  spite  of  another  very  able 
speech  from  Grenville,  declared  Luttrell  to  be  entitled 
to  the  seat. 

Things  had  fallen  out  exactly  as  Grenville  had 
predicted.  The  illegal  declaration  of  the  House,  that 
Wilkes  was  incapable  of  sitting,  had  rendered  it 
almost  inevitable  that  it  should  take  the  further  and 
equally  unprecedented  step  of  awarding  the  seat  to 
a  man  whom  the  constituency  had  definitely  rejected. 
The  persecution  of  Wilkes  had  raised  a  worthless 
demagogue  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  popularity,  and 
fostered  a  spirit  of  turbulence  which,  in  the  critical 
condition  of  American  affairs,  was  disastrous  to 
moderation  and  unanimity.  Wilkes  was  elected  an 
alderman  of  London,  and  shortly  afterwards  sheriff; 
and  his  hand  is  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the  hostile 
attitude  of  London,  not  merely  towards  the  King 
and  Ministry,  but  towards  the  House  of  Commons. 
In  the  year  1770  the  House  came  into  open  collision 
with  the  City  over  an  Address  presented  to  the  King 
by  the  Corporation,  which  led  to  a  scene  of  un- 
precedented violence  in  the  presence  of  the  King 
himself.     Chatham,  who  had  definitely  resigned  office 

16 


2 20  THE   KINGS   FRIENDS 

in  October,  1768,  though  he  despised  Wilkes'  cha- 
racter and  pretensions,  threw  the  whole  weight  of 
his  eloquence  on  the  side  of  popular  liberties.  In 
the  year  1769  there  commenced,  over  the  famous 
signature  of  "Junius,"  a  series  of  criticisms,  of  intense 
virulence  and  singular  skill,  on  the  various  members 
of  the  Administration  ;  and  the  temper  of  the  nation 
was  clearly  shown  in  the  refusal  of  the  jury  to  con- 
vict Wood  fall,  the  publisher  of  a  peculiarly  violent 
attack  on  the  King.  The  last  act  of  humiliation  in 
the  struggle  between  Wilkes  and  his  persecutors 
came  in  the  year  1782,  when  the  House  formally 
expunged  the  resolutions  of  1769  from  its  journals; 
and  Wilkes,  who  had  in  1774  once  more  been 
returned  for  Middlesex,  and  shortly  afterwards 
elected  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  finally  triumphed 
over  his  enemies. 

Long  before  this  date,  however,  events  of  momentous 
importance  had  taken  place  in  the  quarrel  with  the 
American  colonies.  In  the  spring  of  1768,  Lord 
Hillsborough,  whose  office  of  President  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  had  been  converted  into  a  Secretaryship 
of  State  for  the  Colonies,  entered  upon  a  renewed 
course  of  hostilities.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
Assembly  of  New  York  had  held  out  the  olive  branch, 
by  voluntarily  voting  a  sum  of  money  as  a  free  gift 
to  the  Crown,  the  Secretary  of  State  issued  strongly- 
worded  circulars  to  the  Governors  of  the  colonies, 
requiring  them  to  take  action  against  the  Assembly 
of  Massachusetts,  which  had  been  foremost  in  its 
assertions  of  colonial  independence.  In  August,  Sir 
Jeffrey  Amherst  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  who  had 


FREDERICK,   LORD  NORTH   (1733-1792). 
Portrait  by  Nathaniel  Dance. 


228  THE    KING'S    FRIENDS 

earnestly  but  secretly  advised  against  the  passing  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  was  rudely  dismissed  from  his  office, 
and  replaced  by  Lord  Bottetort,  a  well-known  advo- 
cate of  extreme  measures.  Troops  were  hastily  sent 
out,  and  Governor  Bernard,  of  Massachusetts,  who 
knew  the  folly  of  provoking  the  colonists  by  a  display 
of  force,  was  severely  reprimanded  for  his  endeavours 
to  soothe  the  hostile  feelings  of  the  Americans.  In  the 
autumn  session  of  1768-9,  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
adopted  an  Address  to  the  Crown  which  contained 
the  atrocious  suggestion,  that  colonists  accused  of 
treason  should  be  brought  for  trial  to  England,  under 
the  provision  of  an  obscure  and  obsolete  statute  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.  The  news  of  these  steps  was, 
not  unnaturally,  received  with  boundless  indignation 
in  America,  and  war  seemed  to  be  imminent. 

But  just  at  this  moment  (January,  1770)  there 
appeared  a  faint  glimmer  of  hope.  Grafton,  who  had 
made  himself  unpopular  by  a  scandalous  connection 
with  a  woman,  resigned  office  ;  and  the  King  offered 
the  position  of  First  Minister  to  Lord  Noith,  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  It  is  clear  from  the 
letter  which  he  sent  to  North,  that  the  King 
had  no  intention  of  making  a  complete  change  of 
Ministry  ;  but  some  of  Chatham's  friends,  amongst 
them  Camden  and  Conway,  took  the  opportunity 
of  resigning,  and  their  places  were  filled  by 
tin-  l§ast  reputable  of  the  Bedford  Whigs,  such 
as  Sandwich,  Gower,  and  Rigby.  The  Ministry  of 
Lord  North  is  also  noteworthy  as  the  scene  of  the 
first  appearance  in  office  of  Charles  James  Fox,  a 
younger  son  of  the  first  Lord  Holland,  who  was  made 


POLICY   OF  NORTH  22Q 

a  junior  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  who,  for  the  next 
two  or  three  years,  steadily  and  with  great  effect, 
opposed  every  popular  measure  brought  forward  in 
Parliament.1  -  North  himself  seems  to  have  owed  his 
first  promotion  to  the  friendship  of  Newcastle,  and  to 
the  fact  that  his  father  had  been  in  the  service  of  the 
father  of  the  King  ;  and  his  political  sentiments  may, 
therefore,  be  supposed  to  have  been  divided  between 
the  views  of  the  Whigs  and  those  of  the  King's  friends. 
At  first,  he  inclined  towards  a  liberal  attitude  on 
important  questions.  On  the  5th  of  March  he  intro- 
duced and  ultimately  carried  a  Bill  to  repeal  all  the 
duties  imposed  by  Townshend's  famous  Act,  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  duty  of  threepence  a  pound 
on  tea ;  drawing  a  plausible  distinction  between 
articles  manufactured  in  England,  any  diminution  in 
which  would  be  injurious  to  English  trade,  and 
articles  which,  like  tea,  were  merely  imported  from 
elsewhere.  He  also  formally  announced  the  intention 
of  the  Government  not  to  attempt  to  levy  any 
revenue  from  the  colonies  beyond  that  yielded  by  the 
tea  duties.  He  further  expressed  a  qualified  approval 
of  a  thoroughly  useful  measure  introduced  by  Gren- 
ville,  to  transfer  the  decision  of  election  petitions  from 
a  committee  of  the  whole  House,  in  which  the  votes 
inevitably  went  on  party  lines,  to  a  more  or  less 
independent  committee,  chosen  by  ballot  at  the 
commencement  of  each  session. 

'  His  sentiments  at  this  time  maybe  gathered  from  a  letter  which 
he  addressed  in  August,  1771,  to  George  Selwyn,  in  which  he  com- 
plains that  he  finds  Clarendon  a  tedious  author,  but  "hates  the 
opposite  party  so  much  that  it  gives  one  a  kind  of  partiality  for  him.  ' 
(Selwyn  Litters,  hi.  p.  11.) 


23O  THE    KINGS   FRIENDS 

But    the    royal     influence    was    too    strong   to    be 

resisted  by  ;i  man  like  North,  who  owed  his  position 
entire])-  to  Court  influence.  The  tea  duty  itself  had 
been  retained,  as  North  himself  admitted,  by  his 
casting  vote  in  the  Cabinet  ;  and  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  his  decision  was  determined  by  the 
wishes  of  the  King.  The  retention  deprived  the 
reoealing  Act  of  all  its  grace,  for,  as  every  one  knew, 
if  revenue  had  been  the  only  purpose  of  its  continuance, 
that  end  would  have  been  easily  obtained  by  collecting 
the  duty  on  the  passage  of  the  tea  through  the  English 
ports,  whereas  the  English  duty  of  a  shilling  on  the 
same  article  had  only  recently  been  abandoned.  Tin- 
colonists,  therefore,  while  relaxing  their  boycott  in 
respect  of  duty-free  articles,  maintained  the  exclusion 
of  tea  ;  and  the  sore  still  remained  open. 

At  this  juncture  an  event,  disastrous  in  its  influence, 
and  strongly  suggestive  of  the  levity  and  recklessness 
with  which  affairs  of  the  greatest  moment  were 
then  handled  by  public  men,  took  place  in  England. 
Franklin,  the  well-known  representative  of  American 
interests,  had  succeeded,  no  one  exactly  knows  how, 
in  obtaining  several  letters  which  had  been  written,  in 
the  strictest  secrecy,  by  Hutchinson,  the  new  Governor 
of  Massachusetts,  and  OHver,the  Lieutenant-Governor, 
to  Whately,  a  former  secretary  of  Grenville,  and  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons.  These  letters, 
written  without  reserve,  commented  freely  on 
American  affairs,  and  revealed  a  decided  bias  in 
the  minds  of  the  writers  against  the  aspirations  of  the 
colonists.  Franklin  sent  them  to  Boston  under  a 
somewhat  specious  request  for  secrecy,  which  was,  of 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN    (\']0'J-1~<)0). 

Portrait  by  Duplessis. 


•  J  '  /'//A'    AV.Vi/.s    FRIENDS 

course,  not  observed.  The  letters  were  widely  circu- 
lated in  the  colonics,  and  produced  an  indignation 
which  took  the  shape  of  a  petition  for  the  recall  of 
Hutchinson  and  Oliver.  The  conduct  of  Franklin 
can  hardly  be  justified  by  any  high  standard  of 
morality  ;  for  it  is  clear  that  he  knew  the  letters  to 
have  been  written  under  strict  pledge  of  confidence, 
and  that  he  took  advantage  of  the  death  of  Whately, 
to  whom  they  were  addressed,  to  obtain  them  from 
an  unsuspicious  custodian.  But  it  hardly  became  a 
Government,  which  habitually  opened  the  corres- 
pondence of  its  opponents  in  the  Post  Office,  to  affect 
virtuous  indignation  against  a  man  who  had  but 
followed  the  lessons  learnt  in  his  own  experience  of 
Government  service.  Yet  this  was  the  line  adopted. 
Franklin  was  at  once  dismissed  from  his  office  of 
American  Postmaster ;  and  when  the  petition  of 
Massachusetts  came  before  the  Board  of  Trade, 
Wedderburn,  the  Solicitor-General,  whose  political 
apostasy  was  fresh  in  ever)'  one's  mind,  in  the 
presence  of  a  large  audience  of  distinguished  men, 
made  a  violent  personal  attack  on  Franklin,  who 
stood  silent  and  unmoved  before  him.  After  a 
moment's  pause  of  astonishment,  the  audience  burst 
into  a  wild  passion  of  cheers  and  laughter,  and  the 
Board  at  once  threw  out  the  petition  as  "  false, 
groundless,  and  scandalous."  To  the  credit  of  Lord 
North  it  must  be  recorded  that  he,  almost  alone  of 
the  Englishmen  present,  realised  the  gravity  of  the 
moment.  It  is  said  that  Franklin,  returning  to  his 
house  with  a  steady  step,  carefully  removed  and 
folded  up  the  Court  suit  which   he  had  been  wearing, 


AMERICA    AND    THE    TEA    DUTY  233 

to  lay  it  aside  with  the  resolve  that  he-  would  next 
assume  it  on  the  declaration  of  American  Indepen- 
dence. It  is  certain  that  the  event  raised  him  to  the 
highest  point  of  enthusiasm  in  the  minds  of  his 
fellow-countrymen,  and  that  the  whole  weight  of  his 
immense  influence  was  thenceforth  bent  towards 
separation. 

The  merest  trifle  was  now  necessary  to  fire  the 
mine  ;  and  the  occasion  was  served  by  an  Act  of  the 
year  1773,  which  allowed  the  East  India  Company  to 
export  their  tea  direct  to  the  colonies,  instead  of  dis- 
posing of  it  to  English  merchants.  The  measure  had 
been  suggested  by  the  Company  itself,  as  part  of  a 
general  scheme  for  relief  of  its  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments. It  is  difficult  to  see  exactly  how  it  affected 
the  colonists,  who  could  not  be  compelled  to  buy  tea 
against  their  wills.  But  the  more  ardent  spirits  saw 
in  it  a  subtle  attempt  to  break  down  the  boycott. 
The  tea  would  be  imported  by  the  Company's  agents 
in  America,  and,  being  free  of  all  but  the  threepenny 
duty,  would  be  offered  for  sale  cheaper  than  tea 
coming  from  any  other  source.  Perhaps  the  leaders 
of  the  Republican  party  knew  how  futile  it  was  to 
expect  their  fellow-countrymen  to  resist  a  bargain. 
At  any  rate,  as  is  well  known,  they  determined  to 
resist  the  landing  of  the  cargoes.  Three  ships  in 
Boston  harbour  were  boarded  on  December  16th  by 
a  party  of  disguised  insurgents,  and  their  contents 
thrown  into  the  sea.  News  of  the  outrage  provoked 
a  violent  feeling  of  hostility  in  England.  The 
colonial  ports  were  declared  closed  to  British  trade 
by   Act  of  Parliament ;    the  Constitution   of  Massa- 


234  tiif  king's  frie.wds 

chusetts  was  once-  more  suspended.     The  Assembly 

of  the  colony  replied  by  ;i  general  summons  t<>  war. 
In  April,  1775,  was  fought  the  battle  of  Lexington, 
and  the  fatal   struggle  began. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  trace  the 
progress  of  the  American  War  of  Independence. 
Its  main  outlines  are  well  known.  Until  the  close  of 
the  year  1776,  it  appeared  barely  possible  that  the 
British,  in  spite  of  the  incapacity  of  their  commanders, 
and  the  mismanagement  of  the  Government,  might 
be  victorious.  The  difficulties  with  which  Washington 
and  the  Congress  had  to  contend  were  almost  over- 
whelming. I  ntercolonial  jealousies,  the  strong  loyalist 
feelings  still  prevailing  in  many  districts,  the  total 
inexperience  and  the  want  of  subordination  in  the 
American  forces,  the  impossibility  of  procuring 
proper  equipment  for  the  troops,  almost  drove  the 
leaders  of  the  revolution  to  despair.  But  the  brilliant 
capture  of  Trenton  by  Washington  on  Christmas 
night  put  new  heart  into  the  colonists,  and  the 
surrender  of  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga  in  the  following 
year  brought  them  the  invaluable  aid  of  France. 
This  latter  event,  indeed,  stimulated  the  energies  of 
Great  Britain  to  a  desperate  resistance  of  her  ancient 
foe,  and  rallied  to  the  Government  the  powerful 
support  of  the  dying  Chatham,  who,  in  a  memorable 
scene,  scornfully  opposed  the  Duke  of  Richmond's 
proposal  to  recognise  the  independence  of  the 
colonies.  Popular  feeling,  hitherto  lukewarm  as  to 
the  war,  was  raised  to  fever  heat ;  and  at  one  time 
the  British  had  no  less  than  300,000  men  under  arms. 
But  the  incapacity  of  Lord  George  Germaine  at  the 


AMERICAN   INDEPENDENCE  235 

Colonial  Office,  and  Lord  Sandwich  at  the  Admiralty, 
went  far  to  neutralise  the  effects  of  the  national 
enthusiasm.  To  the  war  with  France  was  added  in 
1779  a  war  with  Spain,  and  in  1780  a  war  with 
Holland.  In  1780  the  so-called  "Armed  Neutrality" 
of  Russia,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  for  the  purpose  of 
checking  the  British  naval  operations,  created  a  new 
feature  of  difficulty.  Great  Britain  stood  alone, 
hemmed  in  by  a  ring  of  foes.  In  the  following  year 
Cornwallis  surrendered  at  Yorktown,  and  all  hope 
of  retaining  the  colonies  was  at  an  end.  A  great 
revulsion  of  feeling  took  place,  and  in  March  of 
1782,  after  a  final  orgy  of  corruption,  in  which,  under 
cover  of  a  national  loan,  thousands  of  pounds  of  the 
public  money  were  recklessly  distributed  among  the 
supporters  of  the  dying  Ministry,  the  King  was  com- 
pelled to  accept  the  resignation  of  Lord  North.  The 
Treaty  of  Versailles,1  in  1783,  formally  acknowledged 
the  independence  of  the  colonies,  released  France 
from  the  obligation  to  demolish  the  fortifications  of 
Dunkirk,  restored  to  her  Saint  Lucia,  Senegal,  and 
her  settlements  in  India,  ceded  to  her  Tobago  and 
the  fisheries  on  the  north  and  west  of  Newfoundland, 
and  gave  back  to  Spain  Minorca  and  the  two 
Floridas.  It  was  a  humiliating  contrast  with  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  made  twenty  years  before,  when 
Britain  had  assumed  the  lead  of  the  world  ;  and  it 
would  have  been  far  worse,  but  for  the  great  victory 
of  Rodney  over   De  Grasse  in    the  West  Indies,  in 

1  The  treaty  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  was 
actually  signed  at  Paris.  Rut  the  settlement  is  usually  described  by 
the  title  of  the  instruments  executed  by  France  and  Spain. 


236  THE   KING'S   FRIENDS 

[782,  which  had    thrown  a  gleam  of  glory  over  the 
sinking  fortunes  of  England. 

For  this  terrible;  series  of  disasters  the  King  had 
been  chiefly  to  blame.  The  publication  in  the  year 
[867,  of  the  long  series  of  seven  hundred  letters 
written  by  him  to  North  during  the  lattcr's  tenure 
of  office,  most  of  them  in  the  King's  own  hand, 
revealed  the  fact,  that  the  whole  responsibility,  not 
merely  for  the  main  outlines,  but  for  the  minutest 
details  of  administration,  in  that  gloomy  period,  rests 
with  the  monarch.1  He  it  was  who  refused  to  listen 
to  suggestions  of  compromise,  who  obstinately  per- 
sisted that,  if  only  sufficient  firmness  were  shown,  the 
colonies  must  give  way.  In  his  view  (how  well  we 
know  this  argument !)  the  sole  reason  for  the  insub- 
ordination of  the  colonies  was  the  factious  opposition 
of  the  Whigs,  which  encouraged  them  in  their  re- 
sistance. The  excesses  of  the  German  mercenaries, 
the  employment  of  the  Indian  savages,  the  insults 
heaped  on  the  colonists  by  the  royal  officials,  the 
contemptuous  rejections  of  the  colonial  petitions, 
were  matters  which,  to  his  mind,  did  not  affect  the 
question  at  all.  It  was  his  personal  influence  that 
maintained  in  office,  solely  because  they  were  willing 
to  act  as  his  tools,  Lord  George  Germaine,  whose 
character  he  despised,  Lord  Sandwich,  whose  incapacity 
he  knew,  Suffolk  and  Wedderburn,  whom  all   honest 


1  The  concluding  letters  also  show,  pretty  clearly,  how  the  King's 
system  was  carried  on.  There  are  complaints  Lhal  the  bye-elections  of 
1779-17K1  have  cosl  the  Governmenl  ^72,000,  while  the  pension  list 
shocks  even  the  King.  [Correspondence  of  George  III.  and  Lord 
North,  vol.   ii.   pp.   4 J 1    8. 1 


PERSONAL    GOVERNMENT  2$/ 

men  condemned,  and  Thurlow,  whose  coarseness  and 
brutality  disgusted  even  his  friends.  It  was  he,  finally, 
who,  in  1778,  when  all  eyes  turned  to  Chatham  as  the 
one  hope  of  his  country,  refused  to  admit  to  his 
councils,  even  at  the  risk  of  revolution,  the  man  who 
was,  beyond  all  question,  the  foremost  statesman  of 
his  day,  because  he  knew  that  Chatham,  having  once 
tasted  of  the  bitterness  of  personal  government,  would 
never  submit  to  it  again.  To  say  that  the  colonies 
would,  in  the  courr.e  of  a  few  years,  have  inevitably 
claimed  their  independence,  is  but  a  poor  excuse  for 
the  folly  which  drove  them  into  revolt.  Equally 
idle  is  it  to  point  out,  that  the  mother-country 
in  the  end  gained  more  by  the  mighty  develop- 
ment of  independent  America,  than  she  lost  by  the 
abolition  of  an  antiquated  colonial  system.  It  is 
impossible  to  disguise  the  fact,  that  the  personal 
government  of  the  King  sank  Great  Britain  from  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  terrestrial  glory  to  the  depths  of 
degradation,  dismembered  the  Empire,  and  begot  in 
the  hearts  of  a  great  nation  a  feeling  of  distrust  and 
soreness  towards  the  mother-country  which,  after  the 
lapse  of  more  than  a  century,  has  hardly  yet  passed 
away. 

It  is,  however,  some  consolation  to  feel,  that  this 
long  and  melancholy  period  was  not  entirely  without 
events  which  can  be  said  to  have  marked  a  distinct 
advance  in  freedom  and  good  government.  In  the 
year  1771,  another  episode  connected  with  the  name 
of  Wilkes  established  for  ever  the  publicity  of  Parlia- 
mentary debates.  The  growing  influence  of  the  Press 
had  long   been   viewed   with    anxious  eyes  by  those 


238  THE    KING'S   FRIENDS 

who  were  unfavourable  to  popular  influence  ;  and  the 
publication,  under  thin  disguise,  of  the  proceedings  in 
Parliament,  was  regarded  with  special  dislike.  There 
were  good  reasons  why  many  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  in  particular,  should  deprecate  publicity 
for  their  conduct.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  century, 
the  matter  had  been  frequently  discussed  ;  and  a 
Standing  Order  of  the  House  had  (as  we  have  said) 
been  directed  against  the  practice.  It  is  needless  to 
point  out,  that  a  precaution  which,  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  had  been  necessary  to 
protect  the  House  against  royal  pressure,  had  become 
meaningless  in  the  changed  conditions  of  the  times. 
Whoever  might  be  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  pro- 
ceedings in  Parliament,  it  was  quite  certain  that 
the  King  would  know  every  detail.  The  more 
sensible  members  of  the  House  were  willing  to 
tolerate  a  practice  which,  so  long  as  it  was  not 
openly  legalised,  could  be  kept  within  due  bounds. 
But  Colonel  George  Onslow,  the  "  little  cocking 
George  "  of  Junius'  bitter  invective,  indignant  at 
reflections  on  his  own  unimportant  person,  deter- 
mined to  test  the  matter.  Accordingly,  having 
annoyed  the  House  on  various  occasions  by  insisting 
on  the  gallery  being  cleared,  he  took  the  further  step, 
in  February,  i//i,  of  moving  for  the  production  of 
two  newspapers  containing,  as  he  said,  misrepre- 
sentations of  his  own  speeches.  Having  succeeded 
in  his  object,  he  then  procured  an  order  for  the 
attendance  of  the  printers,  Thompson  and  Wheble, 
and,  when  they  failed  to  appear,  for  their  arrest. 
This  order  was  more  readily  made   than   executed  ; 


PUBLICITY   (>/■    DEBATES  239 

and,  though  it  was  actually  supported  by  a  Royal 
Proclamation,  Wheble,  from  his  safe  retreat  in  Pater- 
noster Row,  boldly  defied  the  authority  of  the  House. 
Apprehensive  of  consequences,  however,  he  procured 
himself  to  be  arrested  under  the  Proclamation  by  a 
friend,  and  brought  before  the  sitting  Alderman  at 
Guildhall,  who  proved  to  be  no  other  than  the  famous 
Wilkes  himself.  Wilkes,  having  gravely  listened  to 
the  charge,  not  only  dismissed  the  accusation  against 
Wheble,  but  bound  the  latter  over  to  prosecute 
Carpenter,  the  friendly  accuser,  for  illegal  arrest.  A 
similar  course  was  adopted  by  Thompson,  except 
that,  in  his  case,  Alderman  Oliver  contributed  another 
item  of  comedy  to  the  proceedings,  by  granting  to 
Thompson's  friendly  assailant  a  certificate  of  con- 
formity with  the  Proclamation,  under  which  he  lodged 
a  claim  for  the  reward  of  ,£50  offered  by  that  document. 
At  length  a  real  arrest  was  effected  of  a  third  printer, 
one  Miller,  by  a  messenger  of  the  House  of  Commons; 
but,  before  the  messenger  could  escape  from  the  City 
with  his  prey,  he  was  given  into  custody  for  assault, 
brought  before  the  Lord  Mayor,  and  committed  for 
trial  at  the  next  Quarter  Sessions. 

Summoned  to  the  House  to  answer  for  his  conduct^ 
the  Lord  Mayor  (Crosby)  made  a  triumphal  procession 
from  the  City,  and,  on  being  admitted,  insisted  upon 
taking  his  place,  not  at  the  bar.  but  in  his  seat  as  a 
member.  Being  interrogated,  he  boldly  vindicated 
his  position  as  guardian  of  the  City's  liberties.  Having 
already  had  sufficient  experience  of  the  difficulty  of 
overawing  Wilkes,  the  House  allowed  the  proceedings 
against   him    to    drop  ;    but    Alderman    Oliver    was 


24O  THE    KINGS    FRIEND* 

subsequently  summoned  to  appear,  and  finally,  after 
lengthy  debates,  and  tumults  within  and  without  the 
House,  Crosby  and  Oliver  were  committed  to  the 
Tower,  where,  until  the  end  of  the  session,  they  lived 
in  great  comfort  at  the  expense  of  the  City,  being 
visited  by  the  leading  members  of  the  Opposition,  and 
treated  as  popular  heroes.  The  ridiculous  result  of  this 
attempt  to  enforce  the  privilege  of  secrecy  virtually 
gave  the  death-blow  to  the  privilege  itself,  and,  except 
on  rare  occasions,  it  has  not  since  been  enforced.1 

For  another  step  of  a  decidedly  progressive 
character  the  Government,  and  not  the  Opposition, 
are  entitled  to  the  full  praise.  The  publicity  of 
Parliamentary  Debates  was  secured  in  the  teeth  of 
the  most  violent  resistance  of  the  King's  friends  ;  but 
the  Quebec  Act  of  1774  was  carried  by  Ministers 
against  the  strong  remonstrances  of  the  Opposition. 
The  occasion  was  the  fixing  of  the  boundaries  of  the 
^reat  province  of  Canada,  acquired  by  the  Peace  of 
Paris  in  1763.  Shortly  after  that  date,  a  Royal 
Proclamation  had  introduced  English  law  (and  there- 
with, of  course,  the  penal  restrictions  on  Catholics2) 
into  the  newly  acquired  territory,  and  at  the  same  time 
announced    that   the  Governor  had  been  authorised, 

1  A  curious  survival  of  the  obsolete  theory  lingered  for  some  time  in 
the  refusal  to  provide  proper  accommodation  for  the  representatives  of 
the  Press.  It  would  have  been  too  absurd  for  the  I  louse  of  Commons 
to  deny  the  existence  "I  a  righl  for  the  exercise  of  which  they  had 
actually  made  provision. 

The  Treaty  ol  Paris  had  expressly  stipulated  for  toleration  of  the 
Canadian  Catholics ;  but  apparently  this  stipulation  had  been  treated 
in  a  very  narrow  sense.  At  any  rate  the  Catholic  clergy  were  very 
uneasy  about,  their  possessions. 


ENGLISH   LAW   FN   CANADA  24I 

in  due  time,  to  summon  a  Representative  Assembly 
on  the  model  of  those  existing  in  the  other  American 
colonies.  But  the  scheme  was  totally  unsuited  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  colony.  The  great  bulk  of  the 
inhabitants  were  of  French  descent.  They  cared 
nothing  for  English  notions  of  political  freedom  ;  but 
they  cared  a  great  deal  for  their  religion,  which  was 
Roman  Catholic.  The  new  measure  availed  itself 
skilfully  of  a  religious  concession  to  abolish  political 
liberty.  It  introduced  a  scheme  of  what  we  should 
call  Crown  Colony  government  by  a  nominated 
council  ;  and  the  levying  of  taxation  was  expressly 
reserved  to  the  Home  Government,  while  the  English 
jury  system,  which  was  quite  alien  to  French  ideas, 
was  only  continued  for  criminal  cases.  But  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion  was  definitely  recognised, 
if  not  actually  established  ;  and  thus  the  newly 
acquired  province  was  pacified  at  a  critical  moment, 
and  virtually  saved  from  annexation  by  the  insurgent 
colonies  in  the  War  of  Independence.  It  would  be 
ungenerous  to  detract  from  the  merit  of  the  King  and 
his  advisers  in  this  measure  by  pointing  out,  that  the 
scheme  roused  the  fiercest  hostility  in  the  adjoining 
Puritan  colonies  of  New  England.  But  this  fact 
must,  in  equal  fairness,  be  held  to  justify  much  of  the 
dislike  manifested  toward  it  by  the  Opposition.  The 
growth  of  religious  toleration  is  also  shown  by  the 
passage  in  1778  of  Sir  George  Savile's  Act,  which 
repealed  some  of  the  worst  restrictions  imposed  on 
Catholics  by  the   policy  of  the   Restoration  '  ;    and, 

'  Roman  Catholic  priests  were  no  longer  to  be  liable  to  prosecution 
merely  as  such,  Catholic  schools  were    to    be   allowed,  and    Catholics 

17 


242  THE    KING'S    FRIENDS 

though  the  bigoted  temper  of  the  nation  was  shown 
by  the  disgraceful  Gordon  Riots  in  [780,  the  firm 
conduct  of  the  King  on  that  occasion  is  worthy  of  all 
praise.     To  Lord  North,  and  not  to- the  King,  belongs 

the  credit  of  the  conciliatory  measures  adopted,  in 
spite  of  a  disgraceful  exhibition  of  commercial 
jealousy,  towards  Ireland  in  1778,  hereafter  to  be 
explained.  It  would  be  unjust  moreover  to  forget, 
though  an  account  of  this  measure  also  must  be 
reserved  for  the  next  chapter,  the  great  statute  of  the 
year  1773  which,  for  the  first  time,  extended  the 
control  of  the  Government  to  the  vast  territories 
acquired  by  the  East  India  Company,  and  established 
a  Supreme  Court  of  Justice,  on  the  English  model,  at 
Calcutta.  Finally,  a  word  must  be  said  of  the  con- 
spicuous services  of  Lord  Mansfield  in  the  cause  of 
justice  during  his  long  tenure  of  office,  as  Chief  of  the 
King's  Bench,  from  1756  to  1788.  Though  Mansfield 
was  an  uniform  supporter  of  the  King's  views  in 
regard  to  the  colonies,  though  he  strained  the  law  to 
the  utmost  against  Wilkes'  supporters,  by  refusing  to 
allow  juries  to  pronounce  upon  the  character  of  an 
alleged  libel,  yet  his  name  is  associated  with  more 
than  one  of  the  judicial  decisions  upon  which  the 
freedom  of  the  subject  is  so  largely  based.  In  the 
year  1772,  in  Summersetts  Case,  he  pronounced  boldly 
that  the  status  of  slavery  was  unknown  to  the  law  of 
England,  and  that  a  negro,  the  moment  he  set  foot  on 
English  soil,  was  a  free  man.      In  Mostyn  v.  Fabrigas 

were  permitted  to  acquire  landed  property  by  purchase  or  inheritance. 
Those  wlic  claimed  the  privileges  "I  the  Act  wen-,  however,  compelled 
in  lake  a  very  severe  oath  of  allegiance. 


JUSTICE   IN  ENGLAND  243 

'1774)  he  allowed  a  resident  in  Minorca  to  sue  the 
Governor  of  the  dependency,  after  his  return  to  Eng- 
land, for  a  wrong  alleged  to  have  been  committed 
during  his  term  of  office.  In  Campbell  v.  Hall  (in 
the  same  year)  he  pronounced  it  unlawful  for  the 
Crown,  after  having  once  granted  representative 
institutions  to  a  colony,  to  attempt  to  impose  taxes 
on  it  by  Letters  Patent.  Above  all,  by  his  luminous 
perception  of  the  principles  of  law,  he  adopted  into  the 
English  system  many  of  the  leading  rules  of  that 
vague  body  of  tradition  and  usage  which,  under  the 
name  of  the  Law  Merchant,  had  long  exercised  a  very 
real,  though  somewhat  precarious  control,  over  the 
conduct  of  commerce.  He  thus  not  only  strengthened 
immensely  the  reputation  and  power  of  the  Common 
Law  Courts,  but  did  much  to  rescue  the  common 
law  itself  from  the  lethargy  into  which  it  had  sunk, 
and  to  adapt  it  to  the  requirements  of  a  rapidly 
extending  commerce.  All  these  incidents  show,  that 
the  spirit  of  progress  and  liberty,  though  obscured  by 
the  passions  of  the  time,  and  the  prejudices  of  a 
narrow  scheme  of  Government,  was  yet,  even  in  the 
dark  years  1770- 1782,  making  good  its  position  in 
the  heart  of  the  social  system,  and  preparing  the  way 
for  triumphs  in  the  future. 


IX 

REVIVAL   OF   THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

The  two  years  which  followed  the  fall  of  Lord 
North,  though  at  first  sight  one  dreary  struggle 
between  intriguing  rivals,  are  in  truth  hardly  equalled 
for  importance  in  the  political  history  of  the  Empire. 
During  this  short  period,  a  new  era  in  the  world's 
fortunes  dawned  with  the  recognised  independence 
of  the  United  States ;  the  future  importance  and 
character  of  Canada  were  decided  by  the  immigration 
of  the  American  loyalists  from  the  south  ;  the  rela- 
tions between  England  and  Ireland  assumed  an 
entirely  new  phase  ;  the  dual  system  of  government 
in  British  India,  which  lasted  until  the  Mutiny  of 
1S57,  was  established;  great  reforms  in  the  public 
service,  and  a  new  financial  policy,  marked  the 
revolt  against  the  old  system  of  corrupt  influence  in 
domestic  politics  ;  the  great  question  of  Parlia- 
mentary Reform  acquired  a  definite  basis  ;  and,  finally, 
an  intense  struggle,  between  the  Ministry  and  the 
Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons,  resulted  in  the 

establishment  of  the  last  great  principle  upon  which 

244 


ATTITUDE    OF   ROCKINGHAM  245 

the  Cabinet  System  is  based.  It  is  worth  while  to 
examine  with  some  care  the  history  of  these  two 
memorable  years. 

The  acknowledged  leader  of  the  party  which,  for 
so  long,  had  protested  against  the  system  of  govern- 
ment by  royal  influence,  was  Lord  Rockingham. 
Against  Rockingham  himself,  even  the  King  had  no 
personal  complaint  to  urge  ;  but  George  hated  him 
as  the  representative  of  a  system  and  a  policy  which 
he  detested,  and  it  was  only  the  reluctant  conviction 
that  no  other  course  was  possible,  which  finally  over- 
came his  repugnance,  and  induced  him  to  entrust  the 
Whig  leader  with  the  formation  of  a  government.  In 
the  circumstances,  the  task  was  no  easy  one  ;  for  the 
royal  influence,  though  it  had  received  a  severe  blow, 
was  still  powerful,  and  Rockingham  knew  that  it 
would  be  employed  to  countermine  his  policy.  Of 
that  policy,  he  had  made  no  secret.  It  comprised  a 
frank  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the  thirteen 
colonies,  a  thorough  reform  of  the  corrupt  influence 
of  the  Treasury,  and  a  generous  treatment  of  the 
claims  of  Ireland. 

Unhappily  for  the  prospects  of  the  new  Cabinet, 
Rockingham's  choice  of  colleagues  was  by  no  means 
so  decided  as  his  policy.  In  Lord  John  Cavendish  he 
gained  a  thoroughly  honest  and  faithful,  if  not  a  very 
competent,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ;  in  Charles 
James  Fox  a  brilliant  if  somewhat  unscrupulous 
Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  in  Camden  a 
President  of  the  Council  of  great  popular  reputation  ; 
in  Burke  (who  was  not,  however,  of  the  Cabinet)  a 
follower  of  real  genius  and  exceptional  loyalty  and 


24C)  REVIVAL    <>/■'   Till:    CABINET   SYSTEM 

honesty  ;  and  in  Grafton  a  great  Whig  nobleman, 
who,  though  his  reputation  was  somewhat  tarnished, 
and  his  political  creed  unstable,  might  yet  be  counted 
a  valuable  all}'.  Hut,  yielding  to  the  pressure  put 
upon  him  by  the  King,  he  made  the  fatal  mistake  of 
accepting  two  men  who  should  never  have  been 
admitted  to  his  councils.  One  of  them  was  Shelburne, 
who  shared  with  Fox  the  Secretaryship  of  State, 
the  other  Thurlow,  who  retained  his  great  office 
of  Chancellor.  Shelburne  was  indeed  a  professed 
Whig  ;  but  he  openly  boasted  those  views  of  which 
Chatham  had  so  bitterly  repented,  and  was  always 
eager  to  disavow  all  party  connections  at  the  bidding 
of  the  King,  and  he  laboured,  as  has  been  said,  under 
the  most  fatal  defect  in  a  statesman,  a  total  inability 
to  convince  any  one  of  his  honesty,  even  as  honesty 
is  understood  in  politics.  Thurlow  was  an  avowed 
Tory,  who,  for  the  next  ten  years,  indulged  himself 
in  the  malicious  pleasure  of  wrecking,  or  trying  to 
wreck,  every  Government  of  which  he  formed  a  part, 
until  he  was  finally  extinguished  by  the  resolute  hand 
of  the  younger  Pitt.  As  Mr.  Lecky  points  out,  there 
seems  to  have  been  at  this  time  a  mischievous  theory, 
that  a  Lord  Chancellor  was,  as  such,  exempt  from 
the  ordinary  ties  of  political  allegiance  ;  and  it  is, 
indeed,  difficult  to  account  otherwise  for  the  way 
in  which  Northington,  Thurlow,  Loughborough,  and 
Kldon  were  allowed  to  play  fast  and  loose  with 
successive  .Ministries.  Hut  the  theory  cannot  be 
justified  by  any  sound  view  of  politics.  The  splendid 
reward  of  the  Chancellorship  is,  and  always  has  been, 
given  almost  entirely  for  political   services  ;  and  the 


Photo  by]  IWalker  &  Cockerell. 

LORD   SHELBURNE   (I73/-1N05). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  tJic  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


248  REVIVAL    OF    THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

assumption,  by  the  occupant  of  the  woolsack,  of  a 
superior  privilege  resting  on  vast  legal  attainments, 
is,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  quite  unwarranted  by  the 
facts. 

It  may  well  be  doubted  whether,  if  the  choice  had 
been  left  to  them,  the  Ministry  would  have  selected 
the  subject  of  Ireland  for  their  first  essay  in  reform. 
But  the  choice  was  not  left  them.  On  the  very  day 
on  which  they  accepted  office,  Colonel  Luttrell  drew 
attention  in  the  House  to  the  alarming  news  from 
the  island  ;  and  his  mysterious  warning  was  immedi- 
ately emphasized  by  Sir  William  Eden,  the  Chief 
Secretary  to  the  retiring  Lord  Lieutenant,  the  Earl 
of  Carlisle.  Lord  Carlisle  had  been  dismissed,  with 
scant  courtesy,  to  make  way  for  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land ;  and  Eden,  who  happened  to  be  in  England 
when  the  recall  was  announced,  determined  to  revenue 
his  chief  by  stating  in  Parliament  news  which  he 
ought,  undoubtedly,  to  have  first  disclosed  to  the 
Secretary  of  State.  In  order  to  understand  the 
gravity  of  the  crisis  which  he  reported,  it  is  necessary 
to  glance  at  the  relations  which  had  subsisted  between 
England  and  Ireland  during  the  previous  period. 

The  policy  adopted  towards  Ireland  at  the  Revolu- 
tion may  be  summed  up  in  three  phrases — Protestant 
ascendency  in  political  and  civil  life,  complete  sub- 
ordination to  the  commercial  interests  of  England, 
government  by  corruption.  It  was  a  curious  policy 
for  a  nation  whose  political  rulers  professed  to  believe 
in  religious  and  civil  freedom,  and  popular  approval  ; 
and  it  can  only  be  explained,  not  justified,  by  tli<- 
fact   of  the  total  dilference  of  circumstances  between 


REPRESSION   IN   IRELAND  2.]Q 

the  two  countries.  The  determined  resistance  offered 
by  Ireland  to  the  Revolution  settlement  had  been 
inspired  chiefly  by  religious  and  political  hatred  ;  and 
the  victorious  Whigs  hardly  felt  any  inconsistency  in 
violating  their  own  fundamental  professions  in  their 
dealings  with  the  conquered  country.  The  vast 
majority  of  the  population  was  Catholic  ;  and  a  reign 
of  terror  placed  the  lives  and  fortune  of  the  Catholics 
at  the  mercy  of  the  Protestant  minority  which  had 
supported  William.  The  celebration  of  Catholic 
worship  was  forbidden,  the  Catholic  gentry  were 
debarred  from  purchasing  or  inheriting  land,  and  a 
horrible  system  of  rewarding  converts  with  the  for- 
feited estates  of  their  Catholic  kinsmen  was  introduced. 
Catholics  were  forbidden  to  teach  in  schools  ;  they 
were  not  allowed  to  possess  arms  for  self-defence  ; 
they  were  excluded  from  the  learned  professions ; 
finally,  they  were  deprived  of  such  poor  shadow 
of  Parliamentary  representation  as  they  nominally 
enjoyed,  by  being  disqualified  for  the  exercise  of  the 
franchise. 

In  commercial  matters,  the  iron  hand  of  England 
fell  on  Protestant  and  Catholic  alike.  The  stringent 
exclusiveness  of  the  Navigation  Acts  treated  Ireland 
as  a  foreign  country,  and  barred  to  her  the  colonial 
trade.  The  jealousy  of  the  English  cloth  manu- 
facturers procured  an  absolute  restriction  on  the 
traffic  in  Irish  wool,  except  between  a  few  specified 
ports  in  Ireland  and  England.  The  old  prohibition 
of  1665  against  the  import  of  Irish  cattle  into  Eng- 
land was  rigorously  maintained.  Even  during  the 
administration    of    W'alpole,   one    article    of    foreign 


:?o  REVIVAL    OF    THE    CABINET  SYSTEM 

commerce  after  another — East  India  goods,  hops, 
colonial  sugars,  glass  —  was  excluded  from  Irish 
ports.  The  single  Irish  industry  which  received 
encouragement  was  the  linen  trade  ;  and  it  is  greatly 
to  be  feared,  that  one  at  least  of  the  motives  for  this 
singular  deviation  from  an  otherwise  consistent 
policy  of  repression,  was  a  desire  to  retaliate  on  the 
Scotch  for  their  unwillingness  to  consent  to  the 
Union. 

English  administration  in   Ireland  was  represented 
by  the  Executive  at  Dublin  Castle,  which,  under  the 
powers  of  Poynings'  Acts,  kept  a  tight  hand  on  such 
faint  legislative  independence  as  the  Irish  Parliament 
was   disposed  to    claim,    and    employed    the    scanty 
balance  remaining  in  the  Irish  Exchequer,  after  the 
pensions    and    salaries    of    English    favourites    and 
absentee   officials  had    been    paid,  in  extending  the 
Government   interest   among  the    Protestant  popula- 
tion.    But,  in   truth,  there  was,  for   more  than  half  a 
century  after  the  Revolution,  little  need  for  the  arts 
of  local  management.     The  Irish  House  of  Commons 
was  the  creature  of  the  great  Protestant  landowners, 
who  owned  the  bulk   of  the    two  hundred    borough 
seats,  and  who  were,  many  of  them,  English  noblemen. 
The  privileged   caste   relied   entirely  on  the  English 
protection,  and  were,  naturally,  but  little  disposed  to 
criticise  English  administration.    The  greatness  of  the 
hereditary  revenues  of  the  Crown   rendered   frequent 
sessions  of  Parliament  unnecessary.    The  Established 
Church  was  officered  by  bishops,  most  of  whom  were 
English,  and    many  of  them  absentees  ;    the  native 
Anglican  clergy  were  ignorant  and  poor.     The  latter 


DEAN   SWIFT   (1667-I745). 

Portrait  by  Bindon. 


"» t  i 


52  REVIV'AL    <>/■     THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

were  also  in  a  peculiar  and  not  altogether  undeserved 
position  of  hostility  to  their  own  flocks.  A  long 
struggle  between  the  great  landowners  and  the  clergy 
on  the  subject  of  tithes  had  resulted,  in  1735,  in  the 
virtual  suppression  of  the  tithes  arising  from  pasture 
lands1;  and,  as  the  great  bulk  of  the  best  land  in  Ireland 
was  then  devoted  to  pasturage,  the  unfortunate  peasant 
who  grew  corn  or  potatoes  on  his  one  or  two  acres, 
found  himself  subjected  to  a  burden,  from  which  his 
far  wealthier  neighbours  were  free. 

The  result  of  this  iron  system  of  repression  may 
undoubtedly  be  claimed  as  favourable  by  those  who 
urge,  that  a  scheme  of  persecution,  if  enforced  with 
sufficient  thoroughness  and  persistence,  may  produce 
tranquillity — for  a  time.  By  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  open  opposition  to  the  Protestant 
rule  had  almost  disappeared,  and,  for  the  next  fifty 
years,  the  political  history  of  Ireland  is  well-nigh  a 
blank.  Occasional  outbreaks  of  independence,  such 
as  that  which,  in  1719,  led  to  the  passing  of  the 
statute  declaring  the  right  of  the  English  Parliament 
to  legislate  for  Ireland,  and  of  the  English  House  of 
Lords  to  hear  Irish  appeals,  were  easily  put  down. 
Even  the  famous  storm  aroused  by  "  Wood's  half- 
pence," in  1723-4,  though  it  was  successful  in  its 
immediate  object,  passed  away,  apparently  without 
permanent  results.  But  Ireland  was  slowly  awaken- 
ing from  the  torpor  of  despair  ;  and  the  formation,  in 
the  year  1759,  of  the  Catholic  Association,  led  to  a 
determined  effort  to  remove  some  of  the  worst  of  her 


The  so-called  "  tithe  "I  agistment." 


L 0 V.  U  TV   OF  IRISH   CA  THOL It  S  2 g  3 

religious  disabilities.  A  slight  measure  of  relief  was 
granted  in  1771,  by  an  Act  which  allowed  Catholics  to 
acquire  small  portions  of  waste  land  for  the  purpose 
of  reclamation.  A  somewhat  vague  measure  in  1774 
enabled  them  to  declare  their  loyalty  to  the  Govern- 
ment, by  taking  an  oath  of  allegiance  of  a  special 
character.  By  a  studied  evasion  of  the  laws  which 
prohibited  them  carrying  arms,  the  English  recruiting 
asrents,  who  found  Ireland  their  most  valuable  hunt- 
ing  ground,  enlisted  large  numbers  of  Catholics  in 
the  regular  army.  But  the  real  crisis  came  with  the 
outbreak  of  the  American  War.  To  the  grateful 
surprise  of  the  Government,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
manifested  an  unbounded  loyalty  to  the  Crown,  while 
the  Ulster  Presbyterians,  who  sympathised  with  the 
colonists,  were  lukewarm  in  their  support.  As,  how- 
ever, there  was  no  real  fear  that  the  latter  would 
oppose  the  Government,  Ministers,  in  their  desperate 
need  of  troops,  ventured  to  employ  abroad  almost 
three  quarters  of  the  army  usually  maintained  in 
Ireland  ;  whilst,  in  the  year  1778,  they  determined  to 
show  their  appreciation  of  Irish  loyalty  by  removing 
not  only  religious  but  commercial  restrictions  to  a 
substantial  extent.  In  their  commercial  policy,  they 
were  foiled  by  the  bitter  hostility  of  the  English 
merchants,  who  succeeded  in  excepting  from  the 
liberal  measure  of  free  trade  proposed  for  Ireland  the 
important  items  of  wool,  hats,  glass,  hops,  gunpowder, 
and  coals  ;  but  in  1779  the  restriction  on  the  growth 
of  Irish  tobacco  was  removed,  and  in  1780  that  on 
wool  and  glass.  In  their  religious  measures,  which 
did    not    come    before   the    British   Parliament,  they 


254  REVIVAL    OF   THE    CABINET  SYSTEM 

sanctioned  the  Bill  brought  forward  in  the  Irish 
legislature  by  Gardiner,  which  allowed  Catholics  i<> 
a<  quire  land,  on  leases  for  999  years. 

A  new  and   formidable  influence  new  arose  in  Ire- 
land.    The  exigencies   of  the  American  War,  and  of 
the  Continental  wars  which   sprang   out   of  it,  had,  as 
we  have  said,  compelled   the   Government  to  denude 
the  country  almost  entirely  of  troops.     In  the  year 
1780,  there  was  grave  danger  of  a  French  invasion  ;  and 
the  Government  were  wholly  unprepared  to  meet  it. 
They  were  even  obliged,  for  want  of  funds, to  abandon 
the  attempt  to  raise  a  militia.     In   the  crisis,  a  self- 
supporting  organisation,  known  as  "  The  Volunteers," 
sprang  up  all  over  Ireland,  and  with  especial  vigour  in 
the   Protestant   North.     The   movement  was,  at  first, 
conducted  with  the  greatest  regularity.     The  Volun- 
teers   were    men    of   substance    and    character,    who 
resembled   the   fervent    Puritans  of  Cromwell's  New 
.Model,  rather  than  the  professional  soldiers  of  regular 
armies.     They  were   mostly   Protestant,  for  the  laws 
against  the  carrying  of  arms  by  Catholics   were  still 
partly   enforced  ;  but  it  was  a   significant  fact,    that 
the  Catholics  contributed  largely  to  the  cost  of  rations 
and  uniforms.     The  officers  were  amongst  the  most 
honoured  and   conspicuous  of  the    Protestant  gentry. 
No  one  doubted  their   valour  or  their  capacity  ;  and 
even  the   Government,  though    it  declined   to  accord 
them  any  official  recognition,   in   fact   relied  greatly 
upon  their  efforts  for  protection. 

Such  an  organisation,  in  such  circumstances,  could 
not  fail  to  react  on  politics.  The  cause  of  Irish 
independence,  which  had   recently   found  two  fervid 


CATIIOl.h     RELIEF  255 

champions  in  Grattan  and  Flood,  and  judicious  and 
more  moderate  supporters  in  such  men  as  Yelverton 
and  Lord  Charlemont,  caught  fresh  life  from  the  move- 
ment. An  agitation  sprang  up  for  the  repeal  of  the 
obnoxious  Declaratory  Act  of  17 19  (p.  252),  and  the 
Privy  Council  clauses  of  Poynings'  Act.  An  immediate 
effect  was  seen  in  the  repeal,  in  1781,  of  the  Presby- 
terian Test,  and  the  passing  of  an  Irish  Habeas 
Corpus  Act.  In  February,  1782,  in  the  last  days  of 
North's  Ministry,  a  great  meeting  of  the  Volunteers 
at  Dungannon  pronounced  decidedly  in  favour  of 
Parliamentary  Reform  and  religious  equality ;  and, 
on  April  16th,  on  the  motion  of  Grattan,  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons  unanimously  voted  an  Address 
to  the  Crown,  praying  for  the  repeal  of  the  Declara- 
tory Act  of  171 9. 

This  was  the  situation  which  the  Rockingham 
Ministry  had  to  face  on  its  entry  upon  office  ;  and  it 
was  clear  that  but  one  policy  was  possible.  For  the 
first  time  in  her  sad  history,  Ireland  had  spoken  with 
an  united  voice  ;  and  that  voice  was  irresistible. 
With  an  European  war  still  on  her  hands,  with  her 
resources  exhausted,  England  was  in  no  plight  to 
enter  upon  a  new  conflict.  Happily,  the  avowed 
principles  of  the  Cabinet  rendered  a  concession 
easy  ;  and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  Fox,  that  the  con- 
cession was  made  whole-heartedly  and  peacefully. 
On  June  3rd,  Fox  in  the  Commons,  and  Shelburne 
in  the  Lords,  moved  resolutions  promising  a  repeal 
of  the  Act  of  1 7 19  and  the  obnoxious  clauses  of 
Poynings'  Act,  and  suggesting  a  permanent  treaty 
between  the  two  countries,  with  regard  to  their  future 


J  56  RE  VIVAl    1  >/■    THE    < '  I  BINE  T   S  I  'S  I  I'M 

relationship.  With  the  single  exception  of  Lord 
Loughborough,  not  a  dissentient  voice  was  raised. 
The  repealing  Act  soon  followed,  and  was  received 
with  universal  joy  in  Ireland.  In  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, the  necessary  amendments  of  Poynings'  Act 
were  soon  passed,  and  most  of  the  remaining  dis- 
abilities of  the  Catholics  were  removed.  In  spite  of 
the  grave  opening  for  future  misunderstanding  left  by 
the  failure  to  carry  into  effect  the  resolution  respect- 
ing future  intercourse,  and  by  some  rather  technical 
difficulties  raised  with  respect  to  the  wording  '  of 
the  repealing  Act,  the  great  constitutional  change  of 
1782  was  carried  into  effect;  and  Ireland  entered 
upon  that  short  period  of  legislative  independence 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  good  judges,  is  the  brightest 
in  the  whole  of  her  chequered  story. 

Thus  left  free  to  turn  their  attention  to  home 
affairs,  the  new  Ministry  nobly  redeemed  their 
promises  of  reform,  by  introducing  and  carrying  five 
great  measures  which  have  had  a  permanently  whole- 
some effect  on  English  politics.  By  the  first,  known 
as  the  Revenue  Officers  Act,  the  officials  of  the 
Excise,  Customs,  Stamps,  Post  Office,  and  Salt  and 
Window  Duties,  to  the  number,  it  was  said,  of  60,000, 
were  deprived  of  the  Parliamentary  franchise.  If 
the  numbers  were  even  approximately  correct,  the 
measure  removed  a  grave  scandal ;  for  it  is  probable 

1  The  advocates  of  "simple  repeal"  contended,  that  the  <nere 
repeal  of  the  Act  of  1719  restored  legislative  and  judicial  independence 
to  Ireland.  Their  opponents  urged,  that  the  Act  of  1719  was  merely 
declaratory  of  the  law,  and  that  its  mere  repeal  left  the  question 
legally  open.  The)  advocated  "Renunciation";  and  their  wishes 
were  gratified  by  an  Acl  of  the  following  session  (17S3). 


MEASURES    OF  RE  FOR  A/  2tf 

that,  at  this  time,  the  whole  electorate  did  not  exceed 
300,000,  and  it  was  well  known  that  every  revenue 
officer's  vote  was  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government 
of  the  day.1  By  the  second,  the  Contractors'  Act,  the 
unwholesome  practice  of  giving  Government  con- 
tracts to  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which 
not  only  corrupted  the  House,  but  caused  the 
greatest  waste  and  inefficiency  in  the  public  service, 
was  abolished.  By  the  third,  all  creations  of  life 
offices  in  the  colonial  service  were  made  for  the 
future  absolutely  void ;  and  it  was  provided  that 
all  non-residents  should  vacate  their  appointments. 
The  shifts  to  which  the  opponents  of  this  measure 
were  put  may  be  guessed  from  the  fact,  that  they  had 
to  resort  to  the  argument,  that  its  wording  would 
offend  the  Americans,  who  might  deem  it  to  be  a 
covert  attack  on  their  independence.  The  fourth 
was  a  long  and  complicated  measure  for  the  reform 
of  the  Paymaster's  office,  introduced  by  Burke.  It 
abolished  the  scandalous  practice  which  treated  the 
Paymaster  as  a  contractor  with  the  State  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  army,  and  enabled  him  to  keep 
enormous  balances  in  his  hands  for  many  years.  All 
payments  on  account  of  the  army  were  to  be  lodged 
at  the  Bank  of  England,  and  to  be  paid  out  directly 
to  the  persons  by  whom  they  were  demanded,  on 
drafts  specifying  precisely  the  service  for  which  they 
were  issued.     The  books  of  the  Paymaster  were  to 

1  Considerable  effect  was  produced  in  the  House  by  the  reading  of  a 
letter,  signed  "  North,"  and  addressed  to  a  person  who  had  promised 
to  secure  for  the  Government  the  votes  of  all  the  revenue  officials  in 
Newark. 

18 


2$8  REVIVAL    OF   THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

belong  to  the  office,  not  to  the  Paymaster.     All  the 
officials  were  to  be  paid   by   fixed   salary  ;   and   the 
fees  of  office,  ;ifter  payment  of  the  office   expenses, 
were  to  go  to  the  fund  for  wounded  officers.     Finally, 
the    pay    for    regiments    was    to    be    issued    to    the 
commanding    officers,    not    according    to    the    often 
defective    "establishment,"    or    nominal    figures,    but 
according   to  the  actual    muster    rolls    for    the    time 
being.     The   Pay  Office  Act  is  strong  testimony  to 
the  honesty  of  its  author,  for  it  materially  reduced 
the    income    of    the    post    to    which    he    had    just 
been  appointed,  and  it  proved  him  to  be  of  altogether 
different  metal  from  the  Hollands,  the  Rigbys,  and  the 
Welbore  Ellis',  under  whose  fostering  care  the  nation 
had    been    defrauded    of  immense  sums  of   money.1 
Hut    the  great    triumph   of   Burke's  short  period   of 
office  is  his  Civil  List  Reform  Act,  which  introduced 
order  and  discipline  into  the  royal  household,  strictly 
limited  the  pension  list  and  the  secret  service  fund, 
and,   by   the  abolition   of  useless    offices,   effected    a 
saving  of  £72,000  a  year  to  the  country.     That  such 
a  measure  was  possible  at  all,  was  due  to  the  persis- 
tent efforts  of  Burke,  carried  on  during  man)-  years  of 
Opposition.      By    his    bold    attacks,    he   had    at    last 
compelled  North  to  issue  a  Royal  Commission  upon 
the  whole  of  the  public  expenditure  ;  and  the  reports 
issued    by    the    Commissioners    in    rapid    succession 
during  1780  and  the  following  years,  had  revealed  a 

1  A  private  report  laid  on  the  table  ol  the  House  during  the  follow- 
ing session  calculated  the  amount  oi  outstanding  money  due  to  the 
Treasury  at  the  enormous  sum  of  forty-four  millions.  .Most  of  this 
represented  balances  in  ihe  hands  of  the  Paymasters. 


PEACE   NEGOTIATIONS  259 

state  of  confusion,  corruption,  inefficiency,  and 
extravagance,  before  which  even  the  King  quailed, 
and  which  rendered  reform  a  real  national  question. 

It  is  melancholy  to  record,  that  a  Government 
which,  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  had  established 
such  claims  on  the  nation,  was  doomed  to  fall  by 
intestine  quarrels  and  Court  influence.  But  the  fact 
was  only  the  natural  result  of  the  weakness  of  Rock- 
ingham, in  admitting  to  office  men  who  were  known 
to  be  hostile  to  his  principles.  Shelburne  had,  from 
the  very  first,  maintained  towards  his  colleagues 
an  attitude  utterly  inconsistent  with  loyalty  to  his 
nominal  chief;  and  now,  during  the  fatal  illness  of 
Rockingham,  he  and  Fox  came  to  an  open  rupture. 
In  the  reconstitution  of  the  Secretary's  office,  con- 
sequent on  the  abolition  of  the  Colonial  Department, 
Home  and  Colonial  affairs  had  been  allotted  to 
Shelburne,  Foreign  affairs  to  Fox.  The  great  ques- 
tion of  diplomacy  at  the  time  was,  of  course,  the 
question  of  peace.  This  question  involved  negotia- 
tions, not  only  with  France  and  Spain,  but  with 
Franklin,  now  the  representative  of  the  United  States 
in  Paris.  The  independence  of  America  was  openly 
admitted  ;  and,  early  in  the  session,  Parliament  had 
actually  passed  a  Bill  authorising  the  Crown  to 
accord  a  formal  recognition  to  the  accomplished  fact. 
The  conduct  of  negotiations  seemed,  therefore,  by 
every  right,  to  belong  to  Fox.  But  Shelburne  did 
not  think  so  ;  and,  when  Fox  sent  an  agent  to  Paris 
to  treat  with  Vergennes,  the  French  Minister,  Shel- 
burne sent  another  to  treat  with  Franklin.  The 
inevitable  result  followed.     Shelburne's  agent  was  no 


260  REVIVAL    OF   THE    CABINET  SYSTEM 

match  for  the  astute  American  ;  and  the  latter,  quite 
naturally,  tried  to  maintain  negotiations  with  Shel- 
burne  through  his  confiding  emissary.  The  King, 
who  detested  Fox,  and  whose  gravest  fault  was,  that 
he  continually  subordinated  public  interests  to  his 
private  feelings,  encouraged  Shelburne  in  his 
duplicity.  At  the  critical  moment,  Rockingham  died 
(July  1st);  and  Fox  at  once  resigned,  taking  with 
him  Lord  John  Cavendish,  Burke,  and  a  number  of 
minor  followers.  The  most  startling  result  of  the 
secession  was  the  admission  to  office,  as  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  of  the  youthful  Pitt,  who,  though 
only  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  had  already  refused 
minor  office  under  Rockingham,  and  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  the  session  just  about  to  close, 
by  a  powerful  speech  in  favour  of  Parliamentary 
Reform,  his  motion  being  lost  by  only  twenty  votes. 

In  the  session  which  followed,  there  occurred  an 
episode  which  has  always  been  considered  as  one  of 
the  most  peculiarly  disgraceful  in  English  political 
history,  and  which  has  left  upon  the  memory  of  Fox 
an  indelible  stain.  The  great  orator  was  smarting 
under  a  just  sense  of  unworthy  treatment.  He  had 
been  ousted  from  an  office,  in  which  he  had  rendered 
splendid  service  to  his  country,  by  a  disgraceful  trick ; 
but  he  could  not  justify  his  resignation  without  be- 
traying Cabinet  secrets.  It  is  true,  that  he  might  have 
alleged  as  his  excuse  the  conduct  of  Thurlow,  who  had 
openly  opposed  his  colleagues'  measures  in  the  House 
of  Lords.1     Put  Thurlow's  ways  were  too  well  known 

1  Tin-  Chancellor  openly  stigmatised  the  Revenue  Officers'  Bill  as 

"an  attempt  to  deceive  and  betray  the  people."' 


COALITION   OF  FOX  ANjD   NORTH  26l 

to    be    treated    as    an    adequate    explanation.       Fox- 
accordingly  suffered  under  the  imputation  of  having 
wrecked  a  promising  Government  by  his  incapacity 
to  work  with  other  people.     This  was  an  imputation 
which  he  felt  keenly ;  for  he  was  one  of  the  most  sweet- 
tempered    of   men,  and    compliance,   not    pugnacity, 
was   his  foible.     He  had   really  resigned  because  he 
saw  that  the  old  corrupt  system  was  being  revived 
through  the  agency  of  Shelburne  and  Thurlow.     In 
his    disappointment,    he    took    the    extreme    step    of 
entering  into  a  close  alliance  with  North  ;   and  the 
country   was  scandalised   by  the  sight  of  two   great 
Parliamentary   leaders,  who   for  ten   years  had  been 
the    champions    of  opposing   parties,  now   suddenly 
reconciled    in  an   unholy   alliance,    formed   with    the 
object  of  overthrowing  a  Government  in  which  one  of 
them  had,  until  a  few  months  before,  held  prominent 
office.     It  is  true  that  Fox  and  North  had  once  before 
been  allies,  that  Fox  had,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen, 
entered  public  life  under  the  auspices  of  North,  and 
that,    as   their   intimates   knew,   they  had    remained 
friends  in  private  life.     But  on  almost  every  conceiv- 
able public  question  they  were  notoriously  at  issue. 
Fox    had    been  the  champion  of   American  claims ; 
North  had  opposed  those  claims    to  the  bitter  end. 
Fox  had  been  the  great  denouncer  of  that  system  of 
Court  influence  of  which  North  had  been  the  supreme 
exponent.     Fox  was   an  advocate   of  Parliamentary 
and  Executive  Reform  ;  North   was  pledged  to   the 
old  abuses.     Fox  had  lent  the  whole  weight  of  his 
eloquence   in    favour    of  freedom    of  the    Press,  and 
the   publicity  of  Parliamentary  debates  ;  North  had 


262  A'/:/ 7/ '.•//.    OF   THE   CABINET  SYSTEM 

steadily  maintained  the  opposite  view.  It  was  too 
much  to  expect  the  country  to  believe  that  North 
had  been  converted  to  Fox's  views  of  the  necessity 
of  abolishing"  Court  influence,  or  that  Fox  had  come 
to  the  impartial  conclusion  that  North's  views  on  the 
the  American  war  were,  after  all,  sound.  There  are 
some  alliances  so  shocking,  that  their  very  existence 
is  more  harmful  than  the  continuance  of  the  evils 
which  they  are  formed  to  oppose. 

Nevertheless,  if  the  country  was  staggered,  the 
House  of  Commons  was  not  unwilling  to  follow  the 
lead  of  two  such  experienced  leaders  as  Fox  and 
North,  against  the  stolid  Dundas  and  the  youthful  Pitt. 
The  curious  attitude  of  the  Commons  during  these 
two  eventful  years  will  be  touched  upon  at  the  close 
of  this  chapter  ;  at  present  it  is  sufficient  to  note  that 
when,  in  February,  1783,  the  preliminaries  of  peace 
were  submitted  to  Parliament  for  approval,  the 
House,  after  a  debate  which  lasted  until  seven  in  the 
morning,  finally  left  the  Ministers  in  a  minority  of 
sixteen.  All  the  eloquence  of  North,  Fox,  Sheridan, 
Burke,  and  Cavendish  was  brought  to  bear  against 
the  proposals  of  the  Government ;  but  the  impartial 
reader  will  fail  to  discover  any  valid  ground  of 
impeachment  of  a  policy  which  was  inevitable  after 
the  disastrous  failures  of  the  war.  It  is  true  that 
the  utter  despair  of  17.S0  had  been  relieved  by  the 
brilliant  victory  of  Rodney,  and  the  still  more  heroic 
defence  of  Gibraltar  by  General  Flliott ;  but  there 
was  no  essential  change  in  the  condition  of  affairs. 
The  preliminaries  by  no  means  deserved  the  censure 
poured  upon  them  by  the  Opposition.     Although  the 


A     WEAK'   CABINET  263 

Treaty  with  the  United  States  dealt  liberally  with  the 
new  Republic  in  the  matter  of  boundaries,  it  gave  no 
countenance  to  the  outrageous  demand  of  Franklin 
for  the  cession  of  Canada ;  and  the  best  proof  of  the 
substantial  wisdom  of  Lord  Shelburne's  Government 
in    the    negotiations    is    the   fact,  that  the   Coalition 
Cabinet    which   succeeded    it    did,    in    the    Definitive 
treaties,  make  no  substantial  variation  from  the  terms 
of    the    Preliminary    Articles.1     The    whole    of   the 
speeches  of  the  Opposition  are  in  the  dreariest  style 
of  captious  debating  logic  ;  but  they  achieved  their 
object,  for,  after   a  few  weeks'   further  struggle,  on 
March  31st,  the  Ministry  resigned,  and  the  King,  to 
his  bitter  mortification,  was  obliged  to  accept  a  new 
Cabinet,  under  the  nominal  leadership  of  the  Duke  of 
Portland,  with  North  and  Fox  as  Secretaries  of  State. 
It  is  worth  notice  that,  despite  the  strength  of  the 
Coalition  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  new  Cabinet 
was  singularly  weak  in  great  names.     It  consisted  of 
only  seven  members,  and  of  these   Fox  and  North 
were    the    only    men    of    real    power.     Lord    John 
Cavendish,  of   course,  returned   to    his    old    post  of 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ;  but  his  reputation  for 
honesty  had  not  been  improved  by  recent  events,  and 
his  talents  were  not  great.     Portland  was  a  cipher. 
Keppel,  though  a  great  sailor,  was  not  a  great  admini- 
strator, and,  having  adhered  to  Lord  Shelburne  in  his 
quarrel  with  Fox,  can  hardly  have  been  reckoned  as 
a  very   safe  or  enthusiastic    supporter    of    the    new 

The  most  impouant  addition  was  the  provision,  in  the  treaties  with 
France  and  Spain,  for  the  settlement  of  a  plan  of  future  commercial 
intercourse. 


264  REVIVAL   OP   Till    CABINET  SYSTEM 

Ministers.  Lord  Stormont,  a  nephew  of  Mansfield, 
was  a  man  of  only  moderate  parts;  and  Lord  Carlisle, 
though  he  had  done  better  than  was  expected  of 
him  in  Ireland,  was  a  young  nobleman  who  owed 
his  position  almost  entirely  to  family  influence.1 
Outside  the  Cabinet,  Burke,  restored  to  the  Pay 
Office,  gave  to  the  Ministry  his  vigorous  support  ; 
but  his  influence  was  on  the  wane.  Sheridan  was 
a  brilliant  debater,  but  carried  little  weight.  Unfor- 
tunately, there  was  no  one  to  whom  Fox  and  North 
could  venture  to  trust  the  Great  Seal,  with  a  seat 
in  the  Cabinet.  Thurlow  they  determined  to  get  rid 
of ;  and  Loughborough  (Wedderburn),  the  obvious 
alternative,  was  obliged  to  be  content  with  the  office 
of  First  Commissioner,  a  fact  which  rendered  him  by 
no  means  friendly  towards  his  new  colleagues.  Lord 
Mansfield  became  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords  ; 
and  no  one  could  doubt  that  his  influence  would  be 
thrown  into  the  scale  against  the  Cabinet. 

Nevertheless,  the  new  Ministry,  for  a  time,  floated 
on  the  wave  of  prosperity.  Measures  were  passed 
for  regulating  commercial  intercourse  with  America. 
The  Acts  of  the  previous  session  relating  to  Ireland 
and  to  the  Civil  List  Reform  were  amended  and 
completed.  A  very  useful  Exchequer  Regulation 
Act  was  carried  by  the  Ministers  against  the  opposi- 
tion of  Pitt,  who  had  a  Bill  of  his  own  on  the  same 
subject.  Although  no  complete  scheme  of  compen- 
sation for  the  American  loyalists  was  accepted,  Lord 

1  He  had  fulfilled  the  ungrateful  task  of  heading  a  Commission  senl 
out  by  Lord  North  in  1778,  to  endeavour  to  bring  about  a  compromise 
with  the  revolting  colonies. 


INDIAN  LEGISLATION  265 

North's   motion    for  allowing  half-pay  to  the  loyalist 
troops    was    agreed    to.     The   real    interest    of   the 
remainder    of    the    session    lies,    however,    in    the 
strengthening     symptoms     of     independent    reform 
which  showed    themselves,  and    which    clearly  fore- 
shadowed   the    triumphs    of    half    a    century   later. 
Alderman    Sawbridge   renewed  his  favourite  motion 
for  a  shortening  of  Parliaments,  and  secured  56  votes 
in  a  House  of  177.     Pitt  again  brought  forward  the 
subject  of  the  Parliamentary  franchise,  and  was  sup- 
ported by  Fox,  Dundas,  and  Sheridan,  as  well  as  by 
Beaufoy,  who,  in  a  brilliant   maiden  speech,  avowed 
himself     an     uncompromising    advocate    of   reform. 
Finally,  a  petition  from  the  Quakers  in  favour  of  the 
abolition   of  the  slave  trade,  which  was  sympatheti- 
cally spoken  to  by  North,  appeared  as  the  first  act  of 
a  long  and  powerful   drama,  fraught  with  immense 
importance  to  the  welfare,  not  only  of  England,  but 
of  humanity. 

Parliament  met  unusually  early  for  the  autumn 
session  ;  and  an  event  soon  occurred  which  tested  the 
strength  of  the  Ministry  to  the  utmost.  The  subject 
of  India  had  long  occupied  the  attention  of  successive 
Governments  ;  and  it  was  agreed  on  all  hands  that 
legislation  on  a  great  scale  was  necessary.  The 
company  of  London  merchants  which  had  received 
its  charter  from  Elizabeth  in  the  year  1600  had  passed 
through  a  strange  and  adventurous  career.  At  first  a 
mere  "regulated"  company  of  merchants,  each  of 
whom  traded  on  his  own  account,  it  had  in  161 2 
become  a  joint-stock  enterprise.  Political  jealousies 
at  the   close   of  the    seventeenth    century,   and   the 


l66  kEVlVAL    OF   THE   <    IB/NET  SYSTEM 

curious  system  of  finance  which  induced  Governments 
to  bargain  for  loans  as  the  price  of  commercial  privi- 
leges, at  one  time  threatened  it  with  serious  rivalry. 
But,  by  skilful  management,  the  new  "  English  Corn- 
pan)"   of  1698   was    appropriated    by  its  older  and 
more   experienced    competitors;    and,    in    1707,    the 
"  United  Company  "  had  secured  a  monopoly,  so  far 
as  the  State  could  confer  it,  of  the  whole  trade  with 
the  East  for  a  period  of  twenty  years.     So  strict  was 
the  exclusiveness  of  the  Company,  and  so  powerful 
its    interests,    that    Englishmen    were   prohibited  by 
statute   in    1720  from  ever  visiting   India  without  its 
license.     As  the  price  of  substantial  loans,  its  charter 
was  renewed  again  and  again  ;  and,  as  each  new  loan 
was  accompanied  by  an  increase  in  the  stock  of  the 
Company,  its  nominal  capital  finally  rose  to  a  sum  of 
over  three  millions. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  the  victories  of  Give 
had  rendered  the  Company  a  territorial  state,  that 
the  national  Government  took  any  direct  part  in  the 
affairs  of  India.  The  first  interposition  occurred  in 
1753,  when  the  Crown  was  authorised  to  establish  by 
charter  certain  courts  of  justice  in  the  three  chief 
settlements  of  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay.  A 
useful  measure  in  the  following  year  sanctioned  the 
establishment  of  courts-martial  for  the  trial  of  offences 
committed  by  soldiers  in  the  employ  of  the  Company, 
and  empowered  the  Crown  to  provide,  by  Articles  of 
War,  for  the  control  of  the  Company's  troops.  A 
very  wholesome  clause  of  the  same  statute  enabled 
persons  aggrieved  by  the  acts  of  the  Presidents  and 
Members    of  Council    of   the    three   settlements,  to 


EAST  /AT?/.-/    COMPANY  REMODELLED  26" 

sue  in  England  on  -the  alleged  injuries ;  and  this 
principle  was  extended  in  1769  to  the  acts  of  all  the 
Company's  officials. 

The  rapid  conquests  of  the  Seven  Years'  War 
rendered  the  Company  the  dominant  power  in 
India,  and  poured  apparently  boundless  wealth  into 
its  coffers.  The  dividends  rose  by  leaps  and  bounds ; 
writers  in  the  Company's  service  accumulated 
fortunes  so  rapidly  that  ,£1,000  were  openly  offered 
for  a  nomination  ;  and  even  military  officers,  whose 
nominal  pay  was  scanty,  became  rich  on  the  pro- 
ceeds of  irregular  transactions.  The  Government 
determined  that  the  nation  should  share  in  the 
Company's  profit.  In  1766,  an  Act  of  Parliament 
stipulated  that  .£400,000  should  be  paid  into  the 
Exchequer  in  the  course  of  two  years  ;  and  in  1768 
Parliament  bargained  for  an  annual  payment  of 
£400,000  for  five  years,  as  the  price  of  allowing  the 
Company  to  retain  its  territorial  revenues,  whilst 
it  provided  that  the  dividend  paid  to  shareholders 
should  not  exceed  12  per  cent.  The  Company  also 
undertook  to  export  at  least  ,£300,000  worth  of 
English  manufactures  every  year,  and  to  lend  the 
cash  in  its  home  coffers  to  the  public  at  2  per 
cent. 

In  the  year  1773  an  important  step  was  taken  by 
the  well-known  Regulating  Act  introduced  by  Lord 
North.  The  Government  of  the  Company  was 
remodelled  by  a  provision  which  enacted  that  the 
twenty-five  Directors,  instead  of  being  annually 
elected,  should  hold  office  for  four  years,  six 
members  retiring  each  year  in  rotation.     The   quali- 


268  REVIVAL    OF    Till-    CABINET  SYSTEM 

fication  for  a  vote  in  the  Court  of  Proprietors,  which 
elected  the  Directors  and  decided  important  ques- 
tions, was  raised  to  £1,000  stock.  The  supreme 
control  of  political  affairs  in  India  was  vested  in  a 
Governor-General  and  Council,  under  whose  direct 
administration  were  placed  the  provinces  of  Bengal, 
Orissa,  and  Behar,  with  a  supervision  over  the 
Governors  of  Madras,  Bombay,  and  Bancoolen.  But 
all  these  officials  were  to  be  absolutely  subject  to  the 
orders  of  the  Court  of  Directors  in  London,  in  whose 
hands  was  left  the  vast  patronage  of  the  Company, 
subject,  in  the  case  of  the  Governor-General  and  his 
Council,  to  the  consent  of  the  Crown,  which  was  also 
authorised  to  establish  a  Supreme  Court  for  Bengal 
at  Calcutta,  with  a  highly-paid  Chief  Justice  and 
associates.  The  valuable  reforms  introduced,  at  con- 
siderable risk,  by  Clive  during  his  second  period  of 
office,  were  reinforced  by  the  provisions  that  no 
military  or  civil  servant  of  the  Company  should 
accept  any  presents  from  natives,  or  carry  on  any 
trade  on  his  own  account,  and  that  no  British 
subject  should  lend  money  to  natives  at  a  higher 
rate  of  interest  than  12  per  cent.  By  this  time  the 
hollowness  of  the  Company's  financial  prosperity  had 
become  manifest,  and,  instead  of  receiving  a  subsidy 
for  the  national  exchequer,  Parliament  had  to  vote  a 
loan  of  £1,400,000  to  help  the  Company  out  of  its 
embarrassments. 

The  plan  of  1773  did  not  work  happily.  Warren 
Hastings,  who  had  been  nominated  by  the  Act 
Governor-General,  with  a  salary  of  £25,000  a  year, 
was  opposed  by  his   colleagues    in  the  Council,  who 


WAR  REN  HASTINGS  26$ 

intrigued  against  him  with  the  Court  of  Directors  ; 
and,  as  a  majority  of  voters  was  necessary  to  support 
his  measures,  he  was  greatly  hampered  in  his  govern- 
ment.    Quarrels  arose  between   the  Supreme  Court 
and  the  Council.     Sir  Elijah  Impey,  the  Chief  Justice, 
shocked  Indian  feeling  by  sentencing  to  death,  on  a 
charge  of  forgery,  Nuncomar,  a  high-caste  Brahmin, 
who  had  attacked  Hastings.     The  latter,  urged  on  by 
the    Court   of   Directors,  who  continually  demanded 
remittances,  adopted  a  vigorous  policy  of  somewhat 
doubtful  morality.     He  stopped  the  payment  to  the 
Moghul  Emperor  of  the  tribute  promised  by  Clive,  on 
the  ground  that  the  Emperor  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
insurgent   Mahrattas.     He  sold  Allahabad  and  Kora 
to  the  Nabob  of  Oudh  ;  and  lent  British  troops  for 
the    suppression    of    the    Rohillas,    that    potentate's 
enemies.     He   crushed    the    Rajah    of   Benares,   and 
exacted  from  him  heavy  tribute  ;  and  he  extorted  a 
huge  fine  from  the  Begum,  or  Queen-Mother,  of  Oudh. 
whom  he  accused  of  aiding  the  Rajah  (Cheyt  Singh). 
Under  this  vigorous  policy  the  territorial  revenues   of 
the  Company  improved,  but  its  commercial  transac- 
tions were  as  unsuccessful  as  before,  and  the  attempt 
to  retrieve  its  failure  was  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
unhappy  incident  at  Boston   in    1773  (p.  233),  which 
precipitated  the   American  War.     Moreover,  as  time 
went  on,  the  enemies  of  Hastings  began  to  make  their 
complaints  heard  in  England.     Scandalous  examples 
of  oppression  were  reported.     Sir  Thomas  Rumbold, 
Governor  of  Madras,  who  had  started  life  as  a  waiter 
at    Arthur's  Club,  acquired  special  notoriety  by  his 
ill-gotten  gains.     His  case  was  brought  before  Par- 


2/0  REVIVAL    OF    THE   CABINET  SYSTEM 

liament,  and,  though  he  was  ultimately  acquitted  by 
the  Committee,  it  was  generally  suspected  that  he 
owed  his  escape  to  a  nefarious  bargain.  The  recall  of 
Sir  Elijah  Impey  was  voted.  Finally,  the  invasion  of 
the  Carnatic  by  Hyder  Ali  brought  matters  to  a 
crisis.  A  Committee  of  Secrecy  was  appointed  in 
1 78 1  ;  but,  somewhat  inconsistently,  Parliament,  whilst 
professing  deep  abhorrence  of  the  irregularities  which 
had  taken  place,  agreed  to  renew  the  Company's  com- 
mercial monopoly  for  another  period  of  ten  years,  in 
return  for  a  payment  of  .£400,000.  The  Company> 
however,  was  utterly  unable  to  raise  the  amount, 
and  even  failed  to  pay  the  arrears  of  Customs'  duties 
for  which  it  had  undertaken  responsibility.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Rockingham  Ministry  the  House 
voted  the  recall  of  Warren  Hastings  and  Governor 
Hornby  ;  but  the  Court  of  Proprietors  refused  to  allow 
the  Directors  to  act  upon  the  vote,  and  it  became 
generally  known  that,  in  its  refusal,  it  was  backed 
by  the  secret  approval  of  the  King.  The  matter 
thus  became  a  great  party  question.  The  Lord 
Advocate  Dundas,  who,  though  he  was  nominally  a 
member  of  the  Coalition,  was  plainly  trimming  his 
sails  to  tack  for  the  Court  haven,  obtained  leave  to 
bring  in  a  Bill  dealing  with  the  affairs  of  India  ;  and 
it  was  necessary,  if  they  would  not  see  the  matter 
taken  out  of  their  own  hands,  for  the  Ministry  to  put 
forward  their  own  measure. 

Accordingly,  on  the  opening  of  the  Autumn  Session 
of  1783,  Fox  introduced  his  celebrated  scheme.  It 
proposed  to  place  the  supreme  political  control  of 
Indian  affairs  in  the  hands  of  a  body  of  seven  "Com- 


FOX  S   INDIA    BILL  2J\ 

missioners,"  '  nominated  by  the  Bill,  to  hold  office  for 
four  years,  and  to  be  removable  only  upon  the 
address  of  one  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  but 
vacancies  and  successions  to  be  filled  by  the  Crown. 
These  Commissioners  were  to  have  the  full  disposal 
of  the  patronage  of  the  Company,  to  undertake  the 
redress  of  grievances  alleged  by  the  native  princes, 
and  to  hear  all  charges  of  corruption  against  the 
Company's  officials.  The  commercial  affairs  of  the 
Company  were  placed  under  the  control  of  a  Board 
of  nine  Assistant  Commissioners,  nominated  in  the 
first  instance  by  the  Bill,  but  afterwards  to  be  elected 
by  the  Court  of  Proprietors.  It  was  expressly  pro- 
vided that  the  Commissioners,  even  when  appointed 
by  the  Crown,  should  be  eligible  for  seats  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  A  second  measure,  which  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  more  than  formally  intro- 
duced, dealt  with  the  local  arrangement  in  India.  It 
confirmed  the  authority  of  the  Governor-General  and 
Council,  but  strictly  limited  that  authority  in  the 
matter  of  treaties  and  acquisitions  of  territory,  and 
made  them  subordinate  in  all  matters  to  the  control 
of  the  Commissioners  in  England.  Rents  and  tribute 
were  not  to  be  raised,  forfeited  lands  were  to  be 
restored,  and  many  of  the  abuses  of  the  old  system 
were  to  be  swept  away. 

Reserving  criticism  of  the  measure  until  we  come 
to  deal  with  that  which  was  finally  accepted  in  its 
place,  we  may  here  concern  ourselves  only  with  the 
fate  of  the  Government  scheme.     The  Bill,  despite  a 

1  This  was  the  proposal  of  the  Bill ;  but  in  the  course  of  debate  Fox 
Consented  to  restore  the  old  title  of  "  Directors." 


272  REVIVAL    OF    THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

good  deal  of  opposition  from  Pitt,  Dundas,  Wilkes, 
and  Wilberforce,  and  petitions  from  the  Company 
and  the  Corporation  of  London,  passed  through  all 
its  stages  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  substantial 
majorities,  after  a  series  of  debates  which  were  inter- 
esting as  comprising  the  maiden  efforts  of  Flood, 
Erskine,  and  Scott  (afterwards  Lord  Eldon).  But 
towards  the  end  of  its  progress  an  ominous  rumour 
began  to  spread,  to  the  effect  that  its  further  career 
was  to  be  checked  by  an  interposition  from  the 
highest  quarter.  The  opponents  of  the  measure  had 
in  fact  gained  access  to  the  ear  of  the  King,  and, 
mainly  through  the  efforts  of  Thurlow  and  the 
youthful  Earl  Temple,  who  had  inherited  from  his 
uncle,  along  with  his  peerage  and  estates,  that  love 
of  intrigue  which  had  made  him  one  of  the  most 
detestable  characters  in  English  political  history,  had 
succeeded  in  creating  in  the  royal  mind  a  violent 
hatred  of  the  Bill.  The  precise  nature  of  the  argu- 
ments employed  can  only  be  guessed  at  ;  but  it  is 
believed  that  they  tended  to  convince  the  King, 
always  ready  to  be  convinced  in  such  a  direction, 
that  the  measure,  if  passed,  would  give  a  permanent, 
or,  at  least,  a  long  continuance  of  power  to  Fox 
and  his  followers,  who,  by  means  of  the  enormous 
patronage  of  India,  would  entrench  themselves  behind 
a  solid  phalanx  of  indirect  support,  which  would 
render  their  position  impregnable.  Inasmuch  as  the 
King  desired,  more  than  anything  else,  to  get  rid  of 
Fox,  he  determined  to  make  a  desperate  effort  to 
defeat  the  latter's  plans.  In  his  eagerness  he  took  a 
step,  the  immorality  of  which,  from  a  political  stand- 


INTERVENTION   OF   THE   KING  273 

point,  has  hardly  been  questioned  by  any  competent 
critic.  He  gave  Temple  a  letter  which  declared  that 
"whoever  voted  for  the  India  Bill  were  not  only  not 
his  friends,  but  he  (the  King)  should  consider  them 
as  his  enemies.  And  if  these  words  were  not  strong 
enough  Earl  Temple  might  use  whatever  words  he 
might  deem  stronger  or  more  to  the  purpose."  This 
letter  the  King  authorised  Temple  to  show  to  the 
peers,  of  course,  privately  ;  and  the  result  was  that, 
on  the  second  reading  in  the  Lords,  the  Bill  was 
defeated  by  a  majority  of  nineteen  votes.  On  the  same 
evening,  with  scarcely  credible  indecency,  the  King 
sent  Sir  Evan  Nepean,  Lord  North's  under-secretary, 
to  demand  from  Fox  and  North  an  instant  surrender 
of  their  seals  of  office.  Nepean  found  his  chiefs  at 
supper,  surrounded  by  a  large  company,  and,  without 
any  attempt  at  secrecy,  though  he  was  most  kindly 
received,  blurted  out  his  message,  which  was,  of 
course,  instantly  obeyed. l 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the  impropriety 
of  which  the  King  had  been  guilty.  Not  only  had 
he  directly  procured  the  rejection  of  a  cardinal 
measure  introduced  by  his  own  constitutional  advisers 
— in  fact,  as  Fox  afterwards  humorously  explained, 
the  royal  letter  had  produced  such  an  effect  that 
some  peers,  who  had  given  promises  to  vote  for  the 
Bill,  were  convinced  of  its  unsoundness  even  before 
they  had  heard  the  debates.     Not  only  had  he  treated 

■  There  is  a  still  more  extraordinary  version  of  this  story,  to  the  effect 
that  North  was  roused  from  sleep  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  by  the 
royal  messenger.  But  the  account  given  in  the  text  is  probably 
accurate. 

19 


274  REVIVAL    Ob    THE   CABINET  SYSTEM 

a  vote  in  the  Lords,  contrary  to  all  precedent,  as 
instantly  decisive  of  the  fate  of  a  Ministry.  But  he 
had  followed  up  his  determination  with  every  circum- 
stance of  insult,  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  no  doubt  on 
the  mind  of  the  nation  that  the  whole  plan  had 
proceeded  from  violent  personal  feeling.  Nor  had  he 
even  the  excuse  that  no  alternative  lay  open  to  him. 
If,  in  his  judgment,  the  measure  was  so  disastrous  to 
the  national  interests  that  its  defeat  was  essential,  he 
might  have  sent  for  Fox  as  soon  as  it  was  introduced, 
and  warned  him,  that,  if  it  were  persisted  in,  he  should 
feel  himself  compelled,  either  to  dismiss  his  Ministers, 
or  to  dissolve  Parliament  and  appeal  to  the  nation. 
Or  he  might,  even  at  the  last  moment,  have  refused 
to  assent  to  the  measure.  It  was  less  than  a  hundred 
years  since  a  similar  course  had  been  adopted  by  one 
of  the  greatest  of  English  Kings  ;  and  there  is  little 
ground  for  saying  that  in  1783  such  a  step  would 
have  been  illegal,  or  even  unconstitutional.  At  any 
rate  it  would  have  been  more  manly,  more  entitled  to 
respect,  than  the  course  which,  at  the  risk  of  embark- 
ing the  two  Houses  in  a  bitter  quarrel,  first  procured 
the  contemptuous  rejection  of  a  measure  which  had 
been  approved  in  the  Commons  by  a  large  majority, 
and  then  inflicted  a  studied  insult  upon  Ministers 
who  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  that  House. 

It  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  Commons 
would  tamely  submit  to  such  proceedings.  Two 
days  after  the  dismissal  of  Fox  and  North,  they 
passed  a  resolution  strongly  condemnatory  of  the 
course  of  action  pursued  ;  and  when,  on  the  19th  of 
December,  it  was  announced  that  Pitt  had  undertaken 


Pitts  administration  2y§ 

to  form  a  Ministry,  the  statement  was  received  with 
derisive  cheers,  and  the  opposing  forces  prepared  for 
war.  Temple  had  received  the  price  of  his  disgrace- 
ful services  by  being  given  the  post  of  Secretary  of 
State ;  and  it  is  even  asserted,  by  contemporary 
writers,  that  he  was  first  entrusted  with  the  task  of 
framing  a  Cabinet.1  It  is,  however,  satisfactory  to 
know,  that  the  same  disposition  which  had  qualified 
him  to  fulfil  his  former  unscrupulous  mission  rendered 
him  unfit  for  more  honourable  service,  and  that,  after 
three  days  of  office,  he  thought  it  better  to  retire. 
The  only  members  of  the  new  Administration,  except 
Pitt,  who  had  any  real  weight,  were  Thurlow,  who 
regained  the  Seal,  Dundas,  whose  reputation  for 
business  capacity  and  debating  power  stood  high, 
and  William  Grenville,  yet  another  member  of  the 
family  which,  for  the  last  thirty  years,  had  exercised 
such  a  questionable  influence  on  English  politics. 

The  situation  was  a  strange  one.  The  Opposition 
included,  with  few  exceptions,  every  debater  of  note 
and  talent  in  the  House ;  and  it  was,  apparently, 
backed  by  a  substantial  majority.  It  determined 
to  revenge  upon  the  new  Ministers  the  unconsti- 
tutional action  to  which  they  owed  their  offices.  So 
confident  were  its  members  in  their  superiority,  that 
they  persisted  for  a  time  in  treating  the  new  Cabinet 
as  an  elaborate  joke.  On  the  other  side  Pitt,  not  yet 
in    his    twenty-fifth   year,    with    only  a   few  months' 

1  The  rumour  probably  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  Kins;  employed 
him  to  write  letters  of  dismissal  to  the  other  members  of  the  Coalition 
Government.  George  III.  was  a  shrewd  judge  of  character,  and  was 
hardly  likely  to  trust  Temple,  though  he  might  use  him. 


2/6  REVIVAL    OF   THE   CABINET  SYSTEM 

experience  of  office,  stood  almost  alone.  But  he  was 
backed  by  the  King,  who  was  prepared  to  go  to  an)' 
lengths  in  his  support,  and  strengthened  by  a  resolute 
ambition,  which  never  for  a  moment  quailed  before 
the  strength  arrayed  against  him. 

The  policy  of  the  Opposition  was  exceedingly 
simple.  It  was  necessary,  if  the  business  of  the 
country  was  to  be  carried  on,  that  certain  measures 
should  be  passed  before  the  close  of  the  Session.  If 
the  annual  Mutiny  Bill  did  not  become  law,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  maintain  a  single  regiment  under 
arms  without  a  direct  defiance  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  ; 
and  the  day  was  long  past  in  which  the  country 
could  contemplate  with  equanimity  the  total  disap- 
pearance of  the  regular  army.  If  Supply  were  not 
voted,  the  Navy  and  most  of  the  other  public  services 
could  not  be  paid.  To  secure  the  passing  of  these 
measures  was  the  main  duty  of  the  chief  representa- 
tive of  the  Government  in  the  Commons.  If  he 
failed  in  his  task  it  seemed  clear  that  he  must  resign 
office.  The  Opposition  resolved  that  Pitt  should 
fail. 

The  one  thing  which  the  Opposition  feared,  or 
professed  to  fear,  was  a  dissolution.  In  Mr.  Lecky's 
opinion,  this  was  a  disastrous  mistake  on  the  part  of 
Fox  and  his  colleagues.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether 
his  judgment  is  correct.  Fox  had  already  no  small 
experience  of  elections,  and  he  had  friends  all  over 
the  country  who  could  not  fail  to  keep  him  informed 
of  the  temper  of  the  constituencies.  North  was  an 
unrivalled  expert  in  such  matters.  It  may  be  that 
their  estimate  of  the  chances  is  more  to  be  regarded 


DEFEAT   OF    THE    OPPOSITION  2JJ 

than  Mr.  Lecky's.  An  appeal  for  a  dissolution  would 
probably  have  lost  them  many  votes  in  the  House ; 
for  Parliament  was  only  in  its  fourth  session,  and 
members  who  had  paid  heavily  for  their  seats  would 
have  resented  any  attempt  to  deprive  them  of  three 
years  of  their  tenure.  It  may  even  have  been  that 
the  chiefs  of  the  Opposition  hoped,  by  pretending 
fear  of  a  dissolution,  to  draw  Pitt  into  an  error  of  judg- 
ment which  would  have  brought  about  his  immediate 
fall.  But,  if  this  were  their  object,  they  were  signally 
defeated.  When,  on  December  22nd,  Erskine  carried 
an  Address  to  the  Crown  deprecating  a  dissolution, 
Pitt,  through  the  royal  message  in  reply,  calmly 
disclaimed  any  intention  of  taking  such  a  step  ;  and 
though,  after  the  Christmas  holidays,  the  youthful 
Premier  puzzled  and  annoyed  the  House  by  main- 
taining a  dogged  silence  on  the  subject,  there  was 
nothing  in  his  conduct  to  hint  that  he  contemplated 
any  premature  ending  of  the  session.  On  the 
contrary,  he  treated  votes  of  censure  and  resolutions 
for  removal  as  items  of  no  consequence  ;  and  quietly 
proceeded  to  introduce  a  rival  scheme  for  dealing 
with  Indian  affairs.  Mystified  and  angry,  the  House 
indignantly  rejected  the  measure  ;  but  it  was  signifi- 
cant that  the  majority  of  the  Opposition  fell  to  eight 
on  the  vote.  Now  thoroughly  alarmed,  the  Opposi- 
tion redoubled  their  attack.  On  the  2nd  of  February, 
in  spite  of  a  platonic  resolution  for  reconciliation, 
passed  on  the  motion  of  Grosvenor,  Coke's  motion 
condemnatory  of  the  position  of  the  Ministry  was 
carried  by  seventeen  votes  ;  and  on  the  next  day  it 
was  resolved,  by  a  slightly  larger  majority,  to  lay  the 


2/8  REVIVAL    OF    THE    CABINET  SYSTEM 

resolution  before  the  King.      Still   Pitt  maintained  a 
serene  composure,and  a  week  later  the  Opposition  took 
the  extreme  step  of  refusing  to  consider  the  Report  on 
the  Ordnance  Estimates.      It  seems  probable  that  this 
proceeding  did   not  meet  with  the  approval  of  the 
independent  members  of  the  House;  for,  soon  after- 
wards, decided  attempts  at  reconciliation  were  made, 
and   when    the    Opposition     renewed    their    directly 
hostile  motions,    their    majority    fell   to   twelve,    and 
finally  to  one.      It  was  now  clear  that  a  single  issue 
must    decide  the    struggle,    and    all    eyes   turned    to 
the   debate    on    the    Mutiny    Hill,    which    was    fixed 
for    March    9th.      The   Opposition    had   once  before 
succeeded  in  postponing  the  measure,  and  they  now 
threatened,  if  they   let  the  Bill   through,  to  limit  its 
operation  to  a  period  of  two  or  three  months.      But 
at  the  critical   moment,   to  the  astonishment  of  the 
House,  Fox  announced  his  intention  not  to   oppose 
the  Bill,  which  thereupon  passed  in  the  usual  form. 
Sir  James    Burges,  a  minor  politician  of  some  note 
at  the  time,  attributes  Fox's  decision  to  a  remarkable 
constitutional  discovery  made  by  him  (Sir  James),  to 
the  effect  that  the  Mutiny   Bill  might  be  introduced 
into   the   Lords;   but  he  does  not  explain   how   this 
interesting  suggestion,  which  he  alleges  to  have  been 
conveyed  by  him  to  his   friend,   Lord   Caermarthen, 
from  Lord  Caermarthen  to  Pitt,  and  from  Pitt  to  Fox, 
would    have   obviated   the  necessity  of  a  subsequent 
debate  in  the  Commons.1       In   truth,   Fox   felt   that 

'  Sir  James  was  a  curious  person.     Ii  appears  u>  have  afforded  him 
unbounded  satisfaction   to  establish   his  right   to  cany  a  baton  in  the 

presence  o(  I  he  King.     [Bland- Burgee  Papers,  .501). 


TRIUMPH   OF  PITT  2/9 

the  ground  was  slipping  from  his  feet.  The  country 
had  been  at  first  amused  at  the  sight  of  the  unequal 
struggle  between  the  young  Minister  and  his  oppo- 
nents. But  that  amusement  was  passing  into  interest, 
into  admiration,  finally  into  enthusiasm  ;  and  Fox  had 
no  wish  to  court  the  disaster  which  he  saw  to  be 
threatening.  His  forebodings  were  fully  realised. 
On  March  25th  the  long-anticipated  dissolution  took 
place.  The  election  which  followed  gave  the  Ministry 
an  enormous  majority,  the  Opposition  passed  into 
final  oblivion,  and  Pitt  immediately  entered  upon 
that  long  period  of  supreme  power  which  lasted,  with 
one  brief  exception,  until  his  death  in  1806. 

Although  this  chapter  has  already  exceeded  the 
normal  length,  it  must  not  close  without  a  brief 
reference  to  a  question  which,  to  the  reader  who  has 
followed  the  course  of  events  which  it  has  attempted 
to  detail,  will  naturally  have  caused  some  difficulty. 
How  was  it  that  the  same  House  of  Commons  which 
had  so  long  supported  North,  veered  round  to 
Rockingham,  then,  after  the  defection  of  the  Rock- 
ingham Whigs,  continued  for  a  short  time  to  support 
Pitt  and  Dundas,  then  went  over  to  the  Coalition, 
finally,  was  just  on  the  point  of  deserting  the 
Coalition  for  Pitt,  when  the  dissolution  put  an  end 
to  its  labours  ? 

A  slight  reflection  will  convince  us,  that  this  curious 
vacillation  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  easy 
explanation  of  royal  influence.  Doubtless  the  "  King's 
Friends"  did  their  utmost  for  North,  and  for  Pitt  and 
Dundas  in  the  Shelburne  Ministry.  But  they  failed 
to    prevent    the    fall    of   North     and    the    Shelburne 


2SO  REVIVAL   (>/■•   THE   CABINET  SYSTEM 

Cabinet ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  they 
supported  either  the  Rockingham  Government  or 
the  Coalition,  both  of  which  were  detested  by  the 
King. 

Neither  will  the  Whig  connection  explain  the  diffi- 
culty. Doubtless,  the  borough  interest  of  Rockingham 
and  his  friends  was  considerable  ;  but  it  had  failed  for 
twelve  years  to  get  rid  of  North,  and  it  failed,  even 
when  reinforced  by  North  himself,  to  prevent  a 
decided  growth  of  feeling  in  the  House  in  favour  of 
Pitt.  Doubtless,  too,  the  Ministry  of  the  day,  even 
when  opposed  by  the  King,  exerted  a  good  deal  of 
patronage  ;  but,  as  we  have  seen,  even  an  alliance  of 
Ministerial  patronage  with  royal  influence  could  not 
keep  Shelburne  in  office. 

The  inference  appears  to  be  irresistible,  that,  in 
spite  of  Court  bribery  and  borough  management,  the 
House  of  Commons,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  was  a  good  deal  more  independent  than  is 
generally  assumed  to  have  been  the  case.  Apparently, 
the  country  gentlemen,  who,  for  the  most  part,  repre- 
sented the  counties,  had  fallen  under  the  spell  neither 
of  party  nor  of  corruption.  They  were  inclined  on 
principle  to  support  the  Administration,  especially 
when  the  Administration  called  itself  Whig  ;  but  they 
exercised  a  good  deal  of  free  choice.  It  is  well  known, 
that  both  Chatham  and  l'itt  regarded  them  as  the 
most  satisfactory  part  of  the  representation  ;  and  this 
view  seems  to  have  been  justified.  Their  weak  point 
was  a  preference  of  field  sports  to  their  duties  in  the 
House  ;  and  this,  at  a  time  when  the  session  of  Parlia- 
ment   usually    covered     the     whole    of   the    hunting 


INFLUENCE    OF   POPULAR    APPROVAL  28 1 

season,1  was  a  grave  drawback.  Unless  threatened 
with  an  increase  in  the  Land  Tax,  or  interested  by  a 
new  militia  scheme,  they  could  hardly  be  persuaded 
to  regular  attendance.  But,  on  great  occasions,  their 
presence  was  often  the  deciding  factor ;  and  the 
anxiety  of  rival  politicians  to  secure  their  approval  is 
very  manifest  in  the  debates.  In  the  fierce  struggle 
between  Pitt  and  the  Coalition  they  played  a  con- 
spicuous part.  In  the  early  days  of  that  struggle, 
Lord  Charles  Spencer,  and  Coke  of  Norfolk,  both  of 
them  typical  country  squires,  moved  hostile  resolu- 
tions against  the  Ministry.  As  time  went  on,  and  that 
natural  sympathy  with  a  man  fighting  against  long 
odds,  which  is  one  of  the  best  features  in  the  English 
character,  began  to  tell  in  favour  of  Pitt,  it  was  the 
country  gentlemen,  led  by  Thomas  Grosvenor,  who 
held  a  long  series  of  meetings  at  the  St.  Alban's 
Tavern,  and  endeavoured  to  promote  a  compromise. 
It  was  perhaps  easier  for  a  member,  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  to  acquire  a  following  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  his  personal  merits  alone, 
than  it  has  ever  been  since.  If  this  be  the  truth,  it 
can  only  have  been  because  the  House  then  contained 
a  considerable  section  of  men  who  followed  the 
bidding  neither  of  the  Crown,  nor  the  Ministers,  nor 
the  constituencies  ;  but  exercised  their  own  indepen- 
dent judgment. 

Apart,  however,  from  all  minor  considerations,  it 
need  hardly   be  pointed  out,   that  the  one  supreme 

1  Itis  not  a  little  cuiious,  that  Pitt,  only  a  year  after  his  accession  to 
power,  began  the  present  practice  of  calling  the  House  together  in 
January. 


282  REVIVAL    OF    THE    CABINET   SYSTEM 

result  of  the  Titanic  struggle  between  Pitt  and  the 
Coalition  was  to  establish  the  great  principle,  that  a 
Minister  defeated  in  the  House  of  Commons  has  yet 
one  possible  appeal  against  extinction.  The  precise 
limits  of  this  right  are  still  in  dispute  ;  and  there  are 
politicians  who  consider  that  it  cannot  be  claimed,  if 
the  House  which  condemns  the  Minister  was  elected 
whilst  he  was  in  office.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  prin- 
ciple was  established  in  1784;  and  it  threw  an  alto- 
gether new  light  upon  Burke's  famous  assertion,  that 
political  authority  depends  not  only  upon  connection, 
but  upon  popular  approval.  What  Burke  himself 
thought  of  this  application  of  his  words,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  guess  ;  though  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  he 
could  reconcile  his  philosophy  with  his  partisanship. 
But  there  was  a  peculiar  felicity  in  the  fact,  that  the 
keystone  of  the  new  arch  was  cemented  by  Pitt.  It 
was  an  achievement  worthy  of  the  favourite  son  of 
the  great  statesman  who  had  made  popular  opinion 
a  working  force  in  politics. 


X 


PITT 


The  life  of  the  younger  Pitt  is  a  great  tragedy. 
Placed  in  supreme  power  at  an  age  when  most  men 
are  but  just  becoming  conscious  of  the  realities  of  life, 
backed  by  a  public  approval  more  universal  than  had 
before  been  vouchsafed  to  any  English  Minister,  save, 
perhaps,  his  own  father,  full  of  sympathy  with  the 
new  movements  of  thought  and  feeling  which  were 
destined  to  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  history  of  his 
country,  he  seems,  as  we  look  at  him  in  1784,  to  be 
destined  to  take  rank  as  one  of  the  creators  of 
national  institutions,  to  lead  the  nation  out  of  the 
bondage  of  medieval  survivals  into  the  promised  land 
of  industrial  freedom,  to  be,  in  short,  what  Stein  was 
to  Prussia,  Bernstorff  to  Denmark,  and  Cavour  to 
Italy.  But,  in  the  bright  dawn  of  his  career,  he  was 
met  and  overwhelmed  by  the  storm  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Foreseeing  the  doom  of  his  hopes,  he 
struggled  long  to  keep  his  country  out  of  the  whirl- 
pool of  European  politics.    But  events  were  too  strong 


283 


284  PITT 

for  him.  The  financial  reformer  was  compelled  to 
become  the  author  of  a  new  and  searching  system  of 
taxation,  and  the  creator  of  a  National  Debt  which 
loomed  gigantic  beside  the  puny  achievements  of  his 
predecessors.  The  friend  of  religious  freedom  was 
doomed  to  imperil  his  honour  by  giving  way  before 
the  stern  resistance  to  Catholic  Emancipation.  The 
champion  of  Parliamentary  Reform  had  to  abandon 
the  task  so  hopefully  begun.  The  popular  hero  was 
obliged  to  move  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act,  and  to  bring  forward  the  Seditious  Meetings 
Bill.  The  advocate  of  peace  found  himself  the  centre 
of  European  Coalitions,  and  the  mainstay  of  profes- 
sional armies.  Had  Pitt  lived  to  the  normal  age  of 
statesmen,  his  fate  might  have  turned.  England 
might  have  been  spared  the  horrors  of  the  reaction, 
and  her  hero's  fame  might,  after  all,  have  shone  out 
with  peaceful  splendour  in  his  closing  years.  Put  it 
was  not  to  be.  Cut  off  in  the  prime  of  his  days  and 
the  gloom  of  his  hopes,  he  did  not  live  to  see  the 
better  England  which  he  had  so  earnestly  longed 
to  create.  The  tangled  web  of  diplomacy,  which 
choked  and  finally  stifled  his  life,  is  beyond  the  scope 
of  these  pages  ;  here  it  will  be  sufficient  to  touch 
upon  the  reforms  by  which  he  left  a  permanent  mark 
on  the  national  life. 

The  first  of  these  is,  of  course,  his  India  Act.  We 
have  seen  that,  even  before  the  dissolution  which  gave 
him  his  great  power,  Pitt  had  brought  forward  a 
scheme  to  replace  the  famous  plan  of  Eox,  and  that 
it  had  been  contemptuously  rejected.  As  soon  as 
the  new  House  had  settled  down  to  work,  after  the 


WILLIAM    PITT. 


(I  759-1806.) 

Portrait  by  John  Hoppner,  R.A.,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


286  PITT 

excitement  of  the  famous  Westminster  Election,1  the 
Prime  Minister  re-introduced  his  India  Bill.  It  is 
obvious,  from  a  glance  at  its  contents,  that  it  proceeded 
on  lines  wholly  different  from  those  of  the  Coalition 
measure.  Instead  of  a  bodv  of  Commissioners, 
appointed  for  the  sole  purpose  of  managing  Indian 
affairs,  Pitt  proposed  to  create  a  new  department  oi 
State,  consisting  of  six  Privy  Councillors  nominated 
during  pleasure  by  the  Crown,  the  Home  Secretary 
and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  being  always 
of  their  number.  'Phis  Board  was  to  have  the  ricrht 
of  examining  all  the  despatches  received  by  the 
Company  from  its  officials  in  India,  and  such  of  the 
Directors'  proceedings  and  despatches  as  were  con- 
cerned with  military  or  civil  government,  or  with 
territorial  revenues.  The  nomination  of  the  Com- 
manders-in-Chief in  the  three  Presidencies  of  Calcutta, 
Madras,  and  Bombay  was  vested  absolutely  in  the 
Crown  ;  and  the  holders  of  these  offices  were  to  rank 
next  after  the  respective  Governors  in  the  Councils 
of  the  Presidencies.  The  nomination  of  the  remaining 
officials  was  left  with  the  Court  of  Directors  ;  but  the 
approval  of  the  Crown  was  made  necessary  in  the  case 
of  Governors  and  Members  of  Councils,  and  any  of 
these  high  officials  might  be  recalled  by  the  Crown  at 
any  moment.  The  superiority  and  authority  of  the 
Governor-General  at  Calcutta  over  the  Governors  of 


'  This  was  the  celebrated  occasion  on  which  the  beautiful  Duchess 
ill  Devonshire  appeared  as  (he  champion  of  Fox,  who,  however,  only 
succeeded  in  obtaining  second  place  on  the  declaration  of  the  poll. 
The  irregularities  of  the  returning  officer  resulted  in  the  length  of  the 
poll  being  reduced  in  the  future  from  forty  to  fifteen  days. 


p/tt's  india  act  287 

the  other  presidencies  was  continued ;  r  but  the 
Governor-General  himself  was  forbidden,  except  in 
certain  cases,  to  commence  hostilities  without  the 
approval  of  the  Home  Government.  To  enable 
delicate  transactions  to  be  conducted  with  the  neces- 
sary silence,  the  Directors  were  required  to  appoint  a 
small  Committee  of  Secrecy  to  act  in  conjunction  with 
the  Board  of  Control  (as  the  new  Government  Com- 
mittee was  called).  The  power  of  the  Court  of  Pro- 
prietors was  practically  abolished,  by  the  provision 
which  rendered  it  powerless  to  annul  any  resolution 
of  the  Directors  which  had  been  approved  of  by  the 
Board  of  Control.  A  very  stringent  clause  (repealed  in 
1786)  compelled  each  official  of  the  Company,  on  his 
return  to  England,  to  specify  on  oath  the  amount  of 
property  brought  back  by  him  ;  and  precautions  were 
taken  to  prevent  an  extravagant  increase  of  the 
Company's  establishment.  The  provisions  for  the 
trial  of  accusations  against  officials  were  extended 
and  improved  ;  but  the  interests  of  the  servants  of 
the  Company  were  protected  by  the  enactment  of  the 
rule  that  promotion,  civil  and  military,  should  go  by 
seniority,  except  for  special  cause. 

Pitt  conducted  the  debates  on  the  measure  in  the 
Commons  with  great  skill  and  moderation  ;  and,  in 
spite  of  the  formidable  criticism  of  the  Opposition, 
now  reinforced  by  Francis,  Hastings'  great  opponent 


1  The  dangers  of  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  Governor- 
General  and  the  members  of  his  Council  were  somewhat  reduced  by 
the  clause  enabling  the  Crown  to  remove  either  ;  but  they  did  not 
finally  disappear  till  1793,  when  the  Governors  were  empowered  to 
override  the  votes  of  their  colleagues  in  urgent  cases. 


288  PITT 

in    the    Bengal    Council,    the    measure    was    carried 
through  both  Houses  by  large  majorities. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  doubt    the  superiority  of 
Pitt's  measure  to  that  of  Fox.     Not  only  was  it  far 
simpler,  but  it  had   the  great  advantage  of  effecting 
very   substantial    change  with    the    least    amount   of 
friction.     No  doubt  the  charges  of  meditated  corrup- 
tion against   Fox    and    his   colleagues   were   wilfully 
exaggerated  to  influence  opposition  ;  but  it  cannot  be 
denied    that   the  creation  of   a  Commission   holding 
office    for   a    fixed    period,  and   exercising    the   vast 
patronage    of    the    Company,    would     have    been     a 
serious   danger    to   the   working  of  government.      A 
change  of   Ministry  during   this   quadrennial    period 
might  have  led  to  the  existence  of  hostile  relations 
between  the  Government  and  the  Directors,  attended 
with  disastrous  consequences.     The  power  given  by 
Fox's  Bill  to  the  Directors  created  by  it,  to  interfere 
with  the  management  of  the  Company's  commerce, 
was   alien   from   the   spirit  of   English   politics  ;    and 
introduced   an  unwelcome  element.     By  abandoning 
all  attempt  to  meddle  with   commercial   operations, 
and    by    restricting    interference    with    patronage    to 
the  essential  minimum,  Pitt's  measure  removed  most 
of  the  ill-feeling  and  suspicion  which  had  grown  up 
about  the  previous  Bill.     Above  all,  by  making  the 
new  controlling  body  virtually  a  department  of  the 
Ministry  of  the  day,  Pitt  rightly  interpreted  the  trend 
of  politics,  and  avoided  what  might  otherwise  have 
proved    a    serious    danger    in     the    working    of    the 
Cabinet  System.      It  is,  doubtless,  in  rare  cases  neces- 
sary  to    create   official    bodies    independent   of    the 


IMPEACHMENT   OF  HASTINGS  289 

control  of  the  Ministry  of  the  day.1  But  such 
institutions  are  not  in  accordance  with  the  general 
principles  of  our  scheme  of  government ;  for  it  must 
be  remembered,  that  exemption  from  the  control  of 
Ministers  almost  necessarily  means  exemption  from 
the  criticism  and  control  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  best  evidence  of  the  soundness  of  Pitt's  scheme 
— for  which,  doubtless,  his  colleague,  Dundas,  is 
entitled  to  much  of  the  credit — is,  that  it  was  con- 
tinued on  the  partial  renewal  of  the  Company's 
commercial  monopoly  in  18 14,  and  that  it  became 
the  dominant  factor  in   Indian  affairs  until   1858. 

With  the  part  played  by  Pitt  in  the  picturesque 
incident  of  the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  it 
is  unnecessary  to  deal  at  length  ;  for  it  forms  no  part 
of  the  permanent  history  of  politics.  Baulked  of  their 
scheme  for  Indian  government,  the  Opposition  con- 
centrated the  whole  of  their  brilliant  energy  upon  the 
prosecution  of  the  great  pro-consul.  The  parts  taken 
by  Burke,  Fox,  Sheridan,  and  others,  are  well  known 
through  the  brilliant  pages  of  Macaulay.  For  the 
appointment  of  Warren  Hastings  Pitt  had,  of  course, 
no  sort  of  responsibility.  When  Hastings  was  first 
directly  attacked  in  Parliament  by  Burke,  after  his 
return  from  India  in  1785,  Pitt  voted  against  the 
motion,  although  it  was  founded  on  what  was, 
undoubtedly,  the  weakest  point  in  Hastings'  career — 
the  Rohilla  war.  But,  on  the  second  charge,  founded 
on  the  fine  inflicted  by  Hastings  upon  Cheyt  Singh, 
the  Rajah  of  Benares,  Pitt,  to  the  intense  astonishment 

1   Examp'es  at  present  existing  are  the  Accountant-General's  office, 
and  the  Charity  and  Ecclesiastical  Commissions. 

20 


290  PITT 

of  the  House,  after  opposing  many  of  Fox's  arguments, 
declared  that  he  should  vote  for  the  motion.  An 
impeachment  followed  in  due  course  ;  and,  as  every 
one  knows,  after  a  trial,  perhaps  the  most  famous  in 
history  for  the  eloquence  displayed,  the  issues  involved, 
and  the  elaborateness  and  length  of  the  proceedings, 
Hastings  was  acquitted  by  the  House  of  Lords  in 
1795.  Pitt  has  been  greatly  blamed  for  his  action  ; 
and  the  most  extreme  suggestions  have  been  made  to 
explain  his  motives.  But  the  case  does  not  appear 
to  be  very  difficult.  Hastings'  career  included  mail}' 
crimes  of  the  first  magnitude;  but,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  less  scrupulous  type  of  patriot,  his  ultimate 
success  excused,  or  even  justified,  his  lapses.  It  is  a 
difficult  question,  about  which  men  will  continue  to 
quarrel  until  the  end  of  time.  At  first  Pitt  was 
inclined  to  take  the  popular  view.  But,  as  his  know- 
ledge of  the  circumstances  increased,  the  pressure  of 
his  conscience  became  stronger.  Personal  purity  in 
morals  was  almost  a  passion  with  him  ;  his  external 
haughtiness  and  genuine  pride  had  in  them  no  taint 
of  cruelty.  He  ma}-  even  have  thought,  that  no 
apparent  indifference  to  charges  such  as  those  brought 
against  Hastings  would  have  hampered  the  work 
of  reform  on  which  he  was  set.  But,  at  any  rate,  he 
ran  "Teat  risk  bv  the  course  which  he  took,  and  his 
conduct  was  that  of  a  strong  man. 

It  is  with  unalloyed  satisfaction  that  the  historian 
of  Pitt  passes  from  his  doubtful  attitude  on  the  im- 
peachment of  Warren  Hastings,  to  the  more  prosaic 
but  more  important  matter  of  financial  reform.  We 
have   seen   that    this    subject,   thanks    chiefly  to    the 


FINANCIAL   REFORM  2ijl 

heroic  efforts  of  Burke,  had  been  "  in  the  air "  for  the 
previous  four  years.  Pitt  cannot,  therefore,  claim  the 
distinguished  merit  of  initiating  the  beneficent  policy 
which  he  did  so  much  to  carry  out ;  nor  can  he  be 
absolved  from  an  immense  debt  of  gratitude,  in  respect 
of  the  details  of  his  measures,  to  that  Commission  of 
Public  Accounts  to  which  reference  has  before  been 
made,  and  which  rendered  priceless  services  to  the 
country  by  its  unrivalled  series  of  reports  in  the  years 
immediately  following  1780.  But,  in  a  system  such 
as  ours,  the  steering  of  measures  through  Parliament 
is  at  least  half  the  battle  of  reform  ;  and  the  merit  of 
that  task  belongs  undoubtedly  to  Pitt.  Four  great 
achievements  mark  the  first  years  of  his  power.  In 
the  absurd  arrangements  which  had  grown  up  since 
the  Revolution,  the  British  revenue  system  was 
necessarily  marred  by  a  bewildering  confusion  and 
waste.  The  produce  of  each  tax  was  collected  by 
a  different  set  of  officials,  and  paid  into  a  separate 
account  at  the  Exchequer.  This  produce,  after 
deduction  of  the  expenses  of  collection,  was  devoted 
by  Parliament  to  a  specific  object.  Worst  of  all, 
salaries  and  pensions,  wholly  unconnected  with  the 
subject  of  the  tax,  were  often  charged  upon  it  on  its 
way  to  the  Exchequer.  The  result  was  confusion, 
extravagance  and  inefficiency.  No  proper  check 
could  be  kept  on  collection  and  expenditure  with 
such  a  want  of  method.  On  one  item  of  revenue 
there  might  be  a  balance  far  more  than  equal  to  the 
demands  for  which  it  was  assigned,  while  on  another 
there  was  a  deficit  which  crippled  an  important  public 
service;  and  yet  the  surplus  on  one  item  could   not 


2Q2  PITT 

go  to  relieve  the  deficit  on  the  other.  This  evil  had 
become  especially  marked  since  the  practice  of  voting 
Supplies  item  by  item  had  grown  up  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  as  it  did  during  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  Treasury  officials,  quite  naturally,  declined  to 
sanction  any  deviation  from  a  scheme  so  jealously 
watched  by  the  House  of  Commons  as  the  Budget.1 
An  absurd  and  antiquated  system  of  audit  rendered 
matters  worse.  Pitt  swept  the  whole  of  the  revenue 
of  the  country  into  a  Consolidated  Fund,  and  made 
all  payments,  with  a  few  exceptions,  from  that  source. 
Certain  items,  such  as  the  Civil  List  and  other  fixed 
annual  outgoings,  were  charged  permanently  on  the 
Consolidated  Fund,  and  were  known  as  "Consolidated 
Fund  Charges  "  ;  the  items  of  varying  amount,  voted 
from  year  to  year  by  the  House  of  Commons  (includ- 
ing the  growing"  charges  for  naval  and  military 
expenditure),  required  express  Parliamentary  sanction 
each  year,  and  became  known  as  "Annual  Supply 
Charges."  In  the  year  1785,  the  antiquated  "  Auditors 
of  Imprest,"  who  drew  huge  incomes  from  fees,  and 
did  no  work,  were  replaced  by  a  Commission  for 
Auditing  the  Public  Accounts,  whose  duties  were  still 
further  extended  by  I'itt  in  1799  and  1805.'-  The 
character  of  this  Commission  was  altered  by  the 
creation    of  the  office  of   Comptroller  and   Auditor- 

1  This  famous  word  firsl  assumed  its  modem  meaning  about  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  said  to  have  owed  its  origin  to 
a  pamphlet  entitled.  The  Budget  Opened^  which  attacked  Walpole's 
excise  scheme  in  1733. 

'  With  that  tenderness  "I  vested  interests  which  is  so  marked  ;i 
feature  <>i  British  polities,  tin-  retiring  Auditors  "I  fmpresl  each 
received  a  life  pension  of  ^7,000  a  year. 


THE  SINKING   FUND  ^93 

General  in  [866;  but  the  system  of  audit  introduced 
by  Pitt  has  not  been  substantially  changed.  A 
gigantic  reform  of  the  Customs  duties,  carried  out  by 
Pitt  in  the  year  1787,  not  only  reduced  to  order  and 
simplicity  an  important  branch  of  the  revenue,  which 
had  been  an  almost  incredible  mass  of  confusion  and 
waste  ;  it  had  the  two  indirect  advantages  of  greatly 
diminishing  the  amount  of  smuggling,1  and  paving 
the  way  for  future  remissions  of  import  duties.  The 
magnitude  of  the  scheme  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that,  in  order  to  effect  it,  it  was  necessary  to 
introduce  into  the  House  of  Commons  a  series  of 
nearly  three  thousand  resolutions.  An  incidental 
reform,  of  smaller  scope  but  considerable  value,  was 
the  restriction  of  the  much  abused  privilege  of  franking 
letters,  exercised  by  members  of  Parliament,  which 
caused  a  loss  to  the  Post  Office  revenue  of  several 
thousand  pounds  a  year.  It  must,  however,  be 
admitted,  that  the  deficit  caused  by  the  reduction  of 
the  Customs  duties  was  somewhat  dearly  bought  by 
the  imposition  of  the  Window  Tax,  which,  until  its 
abolition  in  1851,  tended  to  produce  untold  mischief 
to  the  health  of  the  country,  by  diminishing  the  supply 
of  light  and  air  to  houses. 

Two  other  famous  financial  measures  connected 
with  the  name  of  Pitt  must  be  noticed.  One  of 
these,  the  famous  "  Sinking  Fund,"  has  been  the 
occasion  of  much  scorn.     The  idea,  of  course,  was  not 

'  (  »f  course  Pitt  also  made  direct  efforts  to  stop  smuggling.  His 
"Hovering  Acts"  are  well  known.  Rut  it  may  well  lie  doubted 
whether    the    reform     of    the     tariff     was    not    the     more    efficacious 


measure. 


-94  •  PITT 

new.  Ever  since  the  creation  of  a  National  Debt,  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  (p.  140), 
the  dislike  with  which  it  was  regarded  had  induced 
efforts  for  its  abolition.  Even  before  the  famous 
measure  of  Walpole,  in  17 16,  various  isolated  pro- 
visions for  reduction  had  been  put  forward.  By 
Walpole's  measure,  the  produce  of  various  duties  had 
been  set  aside  to  accumulate  as  a  fund  for  the  purpose; 
but  the  exigencies  of  various  hard-pressed  Ministers 
had  wasted  it  away  to  a  shadow,  before  the  accession 
of  Pitt  to  office.  The  new  Minister,  in  1786,  intro- 
duced a  measure  which  contemplated  the  accumulation 
of  a  million  a  year  from  the  Consolidated  Fund,1  and 
the  produce  of  unclaimed  Government  Annuities,  to 
form  a  fund  for  the  redemption  of  the  State's  liabilities. 
In  the  year  1792,  a  further  income  was  provided 
by  the  devotion  of  1  per  cent,  on  every  public 
loan  to  the  same  purpose.  In  the  following  year,  a 
further  sum  of  ^200,000  was  charged  on  the  Con- 
solidated Fund;  and  a  like  annual  amount  was 
awarded  every  year,  until  Pitt's  resignation  in  1801. 
It  is  generally  asserted,  that  Pitt  borrowed  his  ideas 
on  the  Sinking  Fund  from  Dr.  Price,  an  eminent 
Nonconformist  minister,  who  had  apparently  been 
overcome  by  contemplation  of  the  magic  of  com- 
pound interest.  I  lis  fallacies  were  exposed  with 
great  accuracy  by  Dr.  Hamilton  in  181 3;  but  Pitt 
never  acknowledged  any  indebtedness  to  Price,  and 
it  may  be  well  that  he  was  not  deceived  by  the 
calculations    of    the   worthy   divine.     No   doubt    he 

1  Actually  in  the  original  measure,  from  the  Sinking  Fund.     Mm  in 
the  revision  of  17S7  the  change  indicated  in  the  text  was  made. 


HOSTILE   TARIFF*  2Q5 

thought  it  well  worth  while  to  tempt  the  public  to 
make  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  reducing  a  liability 
which,  if  not  carefully  watched,  would  certainly  favour 
extravagance  and,  ultimately,  lead  to  heavy  taxation. 
So  long  as  the  Sinking  Fund  was  honestly  fed  by  the 
surplus  of  revenue  from  taxation,  the  utmost  that 
could  be  said  against  it  was,  that  the  public  was 
deluded  into  being  virtuous  against  its  will.  But 
when  it  came,  as  it  soon  did,  to  raising  loans  at  a 
high  rate  of  interest,  in  order  to  discharge  liabilities 
already  incurred  at  a  lower  rate,  the  financial  loss  on 
the  proceeding  ought  to  have  been  manifest.  And 
there  is  something  absurd  in  the  sight  of  a  nation, 
unavoidably  called  upon  to  make  heroic  sacrifices  to 
provide  for  a  costly  war,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
saddled  with  further  liabilities,  to  provide  a  higher 
rate  of  interest  for  the  investors  in  Government  stock. 

The  last  of  Pitt's  financial  measures  which  we  can 
notice  is,  his  determined  attempt  to  break  down  the 
system  of  hostile  tariffs  which  had  grown  up  during 
the  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

In  their  origin  quite  as  much  political  as  com- 
mercial, these  tariffs  had,  as  their  worst  results,  the 
creation  of  artificial  industries  unsuited  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  different  countries,  and  a  perpetuation 
of  the  barbarous  notion,  that  what  one  party  to  inter- 
national commerce  gains,  the  other  must  necessarily 
lose.  It  is,  of  course,  on  this  fallacy  that  the  elaborate 
superstition  of  the  Balance  of  Trade  rests.  Unhappily, 
the  long  prevalence  of  an  unsound  system  does 
unquestionably  create  interests,  which  the  adoption 
of  truer  principles  is  bound  to  injure.     Pitt,  therefore, 


296  PITT 

when  he  set  himself  to  encourage  foreign  commerce, 
and  to  mitigate  the  severities  of  the  Navigation  Acts, 
was  prepared  to  encounter  strong  opposition.  His 
proposal  to  free  Ireland  from  commercial  restrictions 
was  defeated  by  the  bitter  jealousy  of  the  English 
manufacturers.  His  various  measures  for  promoting 
commercial  intercourse  with  America  were  cut  down  to 
the  lowest  possible  limits.  But  his  efforts  to  nego- 
tiate a  commercial  treaty  with  France  were  ultimately 
successful  ;  and,  in  1786,  a  great  convention,  providing 
for  the  reduction  of  port  duties  on  a  reciprocal  basis, 
was  signed  by  the  representatives  of  the  two  coun- 
tries, and  was  followed  by  similar  treaties  between 
several  of  the  Continental  Powers.  Finally,  it  may 
be  worth  notice  that  Pitt,  in  1787,  in  spite  of  the 
threatening  state  of  the  Dutch  question,  actually 
brought  about  mutual  declarations  by  England  and 
France  against  the  increase  of  naval  and  military 
armaments. 

The  Minister's  efforts  for  financial  reform  were 
interrupted  in  1788  by  a  constitutional  problem  of 
the  first  importance.  In  that  year  the  King  became 
absolutely  incapable  of  conducting  business  ;  and  it 
was  necessary  to  establish  a  Regency.  The  circum- 
stances were  now  essentially  different  from  those  of 
1765  (p.  209),  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  heir  to  the 
throne  was  of  full  age.  Put  the  Prince's  character 
was  not  such  as  to  inspire  confidence ;  and  Pitt 
determined  not  to  allow  the  whole  power  of  the 
Crown  to  pass  into  his  hands.  In  this  determination 
he  was  amply  justified  ;  for  the  best  medical  opinion 
pronounced  it  almost  certain   that   the   King  would 


THE    REGENCY   QUESTION  2g~ 

ultimately  recover.  And,  as  George  was  on  bad  terms 
with  his  son,  nothing  could  have  been  more  unjust 
than  that  he  should  be  left  practically  at  his  son's 
mercy.  The  Minister  accordingly  introduced  into 
Parliament  a  measure  for  placing  the  authority  of 
the  Regent  on  a  limited  basis,  by  depriving  him  of 
the  power  of  creating  peers,  and  of  conferring  offices 
or  pensions  otherwise  than  during  pleasure,  and  by 
vesting  the  charge  of  the  King's  person,  and  the 
control  of  the  royal  household,  in  the  hands  of  the 
Queen.1  The  Prince  was  furious  ;  and  Fox,  who, 
with  his  friends,  was  in  close  alliance  with  the  heir  to 
the  throne,  asserted  the  doctrine,  that  the  right  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales  to  succeed  to  the  Regency, 
unfettered  by  any  limitation,  was  indefeasible  and 
absolute.  This  assertion  received  no  countenance 
from  the  facts  of  English  history ;  and,  in  any  case, 
it  was  very  curious  doctrine  from  the  mouth  of  a  Whig 
champion.  But  the  Opposition  made  a  powerful  use 
of  it,  to  argue  that  Pitt's  action  was  due  to  the  certain 
conviction,  that  the  first  act  of  the  Regent  would  be 
to  dismiss  him  from  office  ;  and  Pitt  was  placed  in 
an  invidious  position.  The  difficulties  of  the  situation 
were  rendered  yet  more  acute  by  an  Address  from 
the  Irish  Parliament,  inviting  the  Prince  to  take  upon 
himself  the  Regency  as  of  right.  Nevertheless,  Pitt 
courageously  maintained  his  proposals,  and  was  sup- 
ported   by  a    strong   majority    in    Parliament.     The 

1  The  extent  of  the  royal  patronage,  even  after  the  reform  of  the  last 
few  years,  may  be  guessed  by  the  fact,  that  the  appointments  in  the 
royal  household  were  admitted,  even  in  17SS,  to  be  worth  ,£200,000  a 
year. 


298  I'/TT 

final  difficulty  was  to  procure  some  sort  of  a  royal 
assent  to  the  Regency  Bill  ;  and  the  plan  adopted  by 
the  Government  was  certainly  open  to  criticism.1 
But,  after  all,  this  difficulty  was  really  technical.  If", 
as  Pitt  maintained,  Parliament  was  the  proper  body 
to  provide  for  a  temporary  vacancy  of  the  royal  office, 
the  consent  of  the  Crown  was  immaterial.  Just  as 
the  measure  was  about  to  pass,  the  King  suddenly 
recovered,  and  Pitt,  who  was  preparing  to  return  to 
practice  at  the  Bar,  found  himself  once  more  in  secure 
possession  of  office.2 

We  now  come  to  that  event  which  will  always  be 
regarded  as  the  crowning  constitutional  achievement 
of  Pitt's  long  period  of  office,  and  the  matter  by 
which  his  reputation  as  a  statesman  must  ultimately 
stand  or  fall.  This  is,  of  course,  the  Legislative 
Union   between   Great   Britain   and    Ireland. 

Allusion  has  been  made  in  the  preceding  chapter 
to  the  period  of  prosperity  which,  despite  some  diffi- 
culties and  drawbacks,  followed  the  great  changes  of 
1782.  A  liberal  series  of  Bounty  Acts  had  greatly 
stimulated  corn-growing  in  Ireland,  and  produced  an 
apparently  genuine  increase  of  agricultural  prosperity. 
An  equally  careful   system    of  commercial   bounties 

1  The  Chancellor  was  empowered,  by  a  joint  resolution  of  the  two 
Houses,  to  affix  the  Great  Seal  to  a  Commission,  issued  in  the  King's 
name,  authorising  certain  Commissioners  to  summon  Parliament,  and 
give  the  Royal  Assent  to  the  Bill. 

-  One   of  the   amusing   incidents   of  this   anxious   period   was   the 

exquisitely  foolish  position  in  which  the  Irish  delegates  found  them- 

elves  when  they  came  to  London  to  present  the  Regency  Address  to 

the  Prince.     They  were  just   preparing,   with  great  ceremony,  to  wait 

upon  his  Royal  Highness,  when  the  King's  recovery  was  announced. 


TRELAND   AND    Till-    FRENCH  REVOLUTION        2gC) 

had  greatly  fostered  manufactures,  despite  the  break- 
down of  Pitt's  attempted  fiscal  reforms  in  1785.  But 
the  fall  of  the  Bastille  in  1789,  and  the  definite  out- 
break of  the  French  Revolution  which  soon  followed, 
produced  a  startling  effect  upon  a  population  always 
extremely  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  ideas,  and 
naturally  disposed,  for  many  reasons,  to  sympathise 
with  the  French.  The  writings  of  Paine,  the  Angli- 
cised form  of  those  brilliant  sophistries  of  Rousseau 
which  had  played  such  a  large  part  in  preparing  the 
Revolution  in  France,  were  scattered  broadcast 
throughout  Ireland,  and  exercised  an  enormous 
influence.  Burke's  eloquent  denunciations  of  the 
Revolution  produced  no  effect  in  their  author's  native 
country  ;  and  the  Rights  of  Man,  despite  the  im- 
mense inferiority  of  its  arguments,  swept  its  rival 
from  the  field.  The  important  fact  to  remember  is, 
that  French  sympathies  were  at  first  much  stronger 
among  the  active  and  powerful  Presbyterians  of  the 
north,  already  half  republican  by  instinct,  than  among 
the  Catholic  peasantry  of  the  south  and  west,  whose 
natural  leaders  abhorred  a  movement  which  was 
markedly  hostile  to  their  creed,  and  which  placed 
the  abolition  of  authority  in  matters  of  religion  in 
the  forefront  of  its  programme. 

But,  if  the  Catholics  were  at  first  indifferent  to 
the  ideas  of  the  French  Revolution,  it  was  quite 
clear  to  the  advocates  of  French  principles,  that  the 
case  of  the  Catholics  was  by  far  the  strongest  plank 
in  their  platform.  Though  the  Catholics  had  been 
freed  from  most  of  their  social  disabilities  in  1 778—1 782, 
no  evil  results  had  followed  ;  and  the  exclusion  from 


300  PITT 

all  share  in  the  government  of  the  country  of  three- 
fourths  of  its  population  became  all  the  more  ano- 
malous. Accordingly  Wolfe  Tone,  the  author  of  a 
pamphlet  signed  "  A  Northern  Whig,"  which  had  a 
great  circulation  in  Ulster  in  1 791,  made  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  Catholics  from  political  disabilities  his 
rallying  cry.  Though  his  extreme  measures  were 
opposed  by  Grattan  and  the  respectable  members 
of  the  "  Whig  Club,"  Grattan's  sentiments  in  favour 
of  emancipation  were  so  well  known,  that  his  oppo- 
sition had  not  much  effect.  So  strong  seemed  the 
case,  that  the  English  Government,  on  the  advice  of 
Dundas,  were  prepared  to  give  way;  and  they  com- 
municated to  the  Lord-Lieutenant  their  view  that  a 
measure  of  relief  should  be   introduced. 

But  the  decision  of  the  Cabinet  was  stoutly  opposed 
by  the  officials  in  Dublin.  The  changes  of  i  y$2,  though 
they  had  added  greatly  to  the  power  of  the  Irish 
Parliament,  had  not  been  favourable  to  the  growth  of 
Liberal  ideas  in  that  body.  Owing  to  the  necessity 
of  keeping  the  Executive  in  Ireland  in  harmony  with 
the  changes  of  Ministry  in  England,  it  was  con- 
sidered impossible  to  permit  the  adoption  of  a 
Ministerial  system  in  Dublin.  The  constitution  of 
[782  was,  really,  therefore,  that  of  a  Crown  colony, 
in  which  the  Executive  is  independent  of  the  changes 
of  feeling  in  the  country,  with  the  important  differ- 
ence that  the  Lower  I  louse  in  the  Irish  Parliament  was, 
in  theory,  a  purely  elective  body.1  It  was  essential, 
therefore,   if  this   difficult  system    was  to  work,   that 

1   In  an  ordinary  Crown  colony  the  Governor  is  usually  empowered 
in  ;i|i;i  lint  a  substantial  number  of  members  of  the  Legislative  Council. 


RIGHT   HON.    HENRY   (.RATTAN,   M.P.   (1746-1820). 

From  an  engraving  by  Godby  after  Pope. 


302  PITT 

the  Executive  should  maintain,  by  some  means,  a 
majority  in  the  representative  House.  The  only 
means  which,  to  the  authorities  of  the  Castle,  seemed 
adequate  to  the  purpose,  was  a  strengthening  of  the 
corrupt  Protestant  ascendency,  which  was  prepared, 
at  all  hazards,  to  carry  through  the  measures  of  the 
Government.  In  consequence,  the  peculiar  position 
of  1792  was,  that  the  Protestant  English  Cabinet  was 
disposed  to  grant  a  reform  demanded  by  the  Pro- 
testant Wolfe  Tone  and  his  newJy-founded  society  of 
United  Irishmen  ;  while  the  Protestant  officials  in 
Dublin  were  bitterly  opposed  to  a  measure  which 
threatened  to  shake  the  Protestant  ascendency  in 
the  Irish  Parliament,  and  the  mass  of  the  Catholics 
were,  at  present,  somewhat  indifferent  to  the  measure 
proposed  for  their  benefit. 

The  year  1792  was  mainly  spent  in  discussion 
between  the  English  Cabinet  and  the  Irish  officials. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  year,  Ilobart,  the  Chief 
Secretary,  and  Sir  John  Parnell,  the  Irish  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  had  an  interview  with  Pitt  and 
Dundas,  and  succeeded,  for  the  time,  in  enforcing 
their  views,  though  Dundas  insisted  that  nothing 
should  be  done  to  pledge  the  English  Government 
permanently  against  Catholic  Emancipation.  A  very 
moderate  Bill,  introduced  by  a  private  member,  Sir 
Hercules  Langrishe,  into  the  Irish  Parliament,  gave  a 
slight  measure  of  relief,  by  admitting  Catholics  to  the 
legal  profession,  abolishing  the  legal  restrictions 
a&rainst  intermarriage  of  Catholics  and  Protestants. 
and  doing  away  with  educational  disabilities.  The 
Government  allowed  it  to   pass  ;  but  they  took  the 


IRISH   CATHOLICS   ENFRANCHISED  303 

opportunity  of  making  an  injudicious  appeal  to 
sectarian  spirit,  and  their  action  aroused  ill-feeling 
rather  than  gratitude.  In  the  autumn  the  English 
Cabinet,  now  dreading  an  outbreak  of  war  with 
France,  resolved  on  a  thoroughly  injudicious  com- 
promise. They  instructed  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
(Westmorland)  to  introduce  a  measure  conferring 
the  franchise  on  Catholics  ;  but  refused  to  admit  them 
to  seats  in  Parliament. 

This  measure  came  before  the  Irish  Parliament  in 
the  year  1793  ;  and  its  weakness  was  at  once  mani- 
fest. The  Irish  officials  made  no  secret  of  their 
dislike  to  the  duty  which  they  were  compelled  to 
perform,  and  Grattan  pointed  out  with  great  force 
the  extreme  folly  of  a  measure  which,  while  admitting 
thousands  of  ignorant  Catholics  to  the  franchise,  gave 
them  no  opportunity  of  electing  their  legitimate 
leaders,  the  Irish  Catholic  gentry.  Hut  this  criticism 
was  little  appreciated  in  England,  where  it  was  not 
realised  that,  owing  to  the  practice  of  granting  leases, 
even  of  the  smallest  agricultural  holdings,  for  lives 
instead  of  for  years,  the  Government  measure  practi- 
cally amounted  to  an  enfranchisement  of  the  whole 
Catholic  peasantry,  whilst  it  left  the  prosperous 
artisans  and  shopkeepers  of  the  towns  outside  the 
political  arena.1  So  manifest  was  the  danger,  that 
Sir  Lawrence  Parsons,  though  a  strong  partisan  of 
Catholic  Emancipation,  urged,  in  a  powerful  speech, 

1  The  freehold  franchise  in  England  had  been  fixed  I >y  an  Act  of 
Henry  VI.  at  forty  shillings  value;  and  the  limitation  had  been 
imported  into  Ireland  without  much  regard  to  its  suitability.  A  life 
estate  is,  technically,  a  "  freehold.'' 


304  PITT 

that  the  proper  plan  was  to  restrict  the  franchise 
to  freeholders  of  £20  a  year,  and  to  admit  Catholics 
to  Parliament.  The  Government,  however,  obsti- 
nately resisted  his  proposal,  as  well  as  the  suggestion 
of  Ponsonby  to  grant  complete  emancipation  ;  and 
the  measure  was  carried  in  its  original  form.  But 
any  conciliatory  effect  which  the  concession  might 
have  had  was  largely  discounted  by  an  extraordinary 
speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Lords  by  Fitzgibbon, 
the  Chancellor,  one  of  the  ablest  and  bitterest  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Protestant  ascendency.  Though  he 
announced  his  intention  of  voting  for  the  measure, 
Fitzgibbon  poured  out  the  whole  wealth  of  his 
mordant  satire  on  the  Catholics,  traced  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Pope  every  evil  and  every  difficulty  in  the 
history  of  Ireland,  and  emphatically  denied  that  any- 
Catholic  could  ever  be  admitted  to  the  smallest 
exercise  of  authority  in  the  country. 

Thus  the  famous  measure  of  1793,  instead  of  being 
a  herald  of  peace,  became  the  signal  of  religious  strife 
in  Ireland.  Almost  immediately  afterwards,  the 
Catholic  society  of  the  "Defenders,"  which  had 
originated  in  the  county  of  Armagh  as  a  hostile- 
organisation  against  a  Protestant  society  known  as 
the  "  Peep  of  Day  Boys,"  was  revived  ;  and  its  influ- 
ence began  to  spread  into  other  parts  of  Ireland. 
The  United  Irishmen,  although,  as  we  have  seen, 
their  founders  were  Protestants,  excited  by  the  out- 
break of  the  French  war,  began  to  make  overtures  to 
the  Defenders  ;  and,  although  the  religious  differ- 
ence of  their  members  for  some  time  kept  the 
societies  apart,  they  ultimately  succeeded  in  effecting 


WAR    WITH   FRANCE  305 

a  union,  with  the  result  that  the  United  Irishmen 
became  large])'  a  Catholic  body,  while  the  Catholics 
adopted  the  republican  views  of  Wolfe  Tone  and  his 
followers.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Peep  of  Day 
Boys  rapidly  expanded  into  the  formidable  move- 
ment of  Orangeism,  which,  by  championing  the  prin- 
ciples of  Protestant  ascendency  in  their  crudest  form, 
soon  came  into  fierce  conflict  with  its  Catholic  neigh- 
bours. Meantime,  however,  an  event  had  happened 
which,  for  nearly  a  year,  held  Ireland  in  a  state  of 
suspense. 

It  is  now  generally  admitted  that  Cobden's  view  of 
the  origin  of  the  great  French  war  was  unfounded  in 
fact.  In  spite  of  the  greatest  provocation,  Pitt  firmly 
maintained  a  conciliatory  attitude  during  the  first 
few  years  of  the  French  Revolution.  Despite  Burke's 
thunders,  despite  the  growing  uneasiness  of  the 
wealthy  classes  at  the  spread  of  French  principles, 
despite  the  active  programme  of  the  French  envoy  to 
England,  he  refused  to  be  drawn  into  war.  On  the 
introduction  of  his  Budget  in  1792,  he  declared — and 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  honesty — that  he  looked 
forward  to  many  years  of  peace.  He  knew  that  a 
war  expenditure  would  ruin  his  cherished  plans  of 
financial  reform.  But,  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts,  he 
was  drawn  into  the  whirlpool  ;  and,  in  the  spring  o 
1793,  the  country  embarked  on  that  long  and  terrible 
period  of  hostilities  which  ended  only  at  Waterloo. 
Naturally  anxious  to  strengthen  himself  in  the  mortal 
struggle  by  enlarging  the  basis  of  his  Government,  he 
effected,  in  June,  1794,  a  junction  with  the  more 
moderate    Whigs     under    Portland,    who    succeeded 

21 


306  PITT 

Dundas  as  Home  Secretary,  the  latter  taking  up 
the  newly  created  Secretaryship  for  War.  It  was 
part  of  the  bargain  with  the  new  members  of  the 
Cabinet  that  Fitzwilliam,  their  highly-respected  but 
somewhat  indiscreet  supporter,  should  replace  West- 
morland as  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  ;  and  Fitz- 
william was  known  to  be  favourable  to  Catholic 
claims.  There  is  much  dispute  as  to  the  precise- 
terms  of  the  bargain  ;  but  it  is  clear  that  Fitz- 
william believed  himself  to  be  entitled  to  earn- 
out  a  policy  which  he  believed  to  be  secretly 
favoured  by  Pitt,  and  to  reverse  the  attitude  of 
Westmorland,  with  whom  Pitt  was  thought  to  be  on 
bad  terms. 

The  first  act  of  the  new  Viceroy,  on  landing  in 
Ireland  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1795,  was  to 
dismiss  from  their  offices  Hamilton,  Cooke,  and 
Heresford,  three  of  the  permanent  officials  most 
prominently  identified  with  the  system  of  Protestant 
ascendency.  The  reason  he  alleged  in  his  despatches 
was,  that  he  found  it  utterly  impossible  to  carry  out 
his  policy  through  the  agency  of  men  who  were 
determined  to  oppose  it  at  every  step,  and  whose 
overwhelming  influence  in  the  ranks  of  corruption 
made  it  necessary  to  deprive  them  of  power.  Of 
course  he  was  guilty  of  no  illegality  in  this  step. 
The  Executive  appointments  in  Ireland,  as  in  Eng- 
land, were  held  at  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown  ;  and 
the  Crown  in  Ireland  was  represented  by  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant.  But  it  was  a  rash  act,  and  it  spelt 
the  Viceroy's  doom.  Hastening  to  England,  the 
ejected    officials  began    to    besiege  the  doors  of  the 


THE  EMANCIPATION  BILL  30/ 

Ministers    with    complaints  and    warnings;    and,    in 
the  end,  their  efforts  were  successful. 

Meanwhile,  Fitzwilliam,  acting  in  concert  with  the 
leaders  of  the  Irish  Whigs — Grattan,  the  Ponsonbys, 
Yelverton — was  devising  a  thorough  scheme  for  the 
removal  of  Irish  discontent.  Me  saw  that  the  great 
want  of  the  country  in  administration  was  a  good 
system  of  civil  police,  which  should  render  it 
unnecessary  to  employ  the  soldiery  to  repress  every 
trifling  outbreak  of  disorder.  But,  if  the  flames  of 
religious  war  were  not  to  be  ignited,  it  was  essential 
that  the  police  in  the  Catholic  districts  should  be 
themselves  Catholics  of  respectability.  This  convic- 
tion strengthened  him  in  his  disposition  to  conciliate 
Catholic  feeling,  by  yielding  to  the  growing  move- 
ment in  favour  of  emancipation.  Now  that  the 
recalcitrant  officials  were  removed,  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  passing  the  measure  through  Parliament. 
Even  Fitzgibbon  admitted  as  much.  Fitzwilliam 
sent  home  to  the  Cabinet  the  fullest  accounts  of  his 
intentions,  together  with  an  elaborate  statement  of 
the  reasons  on  which  they  were  based.  For  some 
weeks  the  English  Government  took  no  notice  of 
his  letters.  With  the  full  concurrence  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  Grattan  obtained  leave  to  bring  in  an 
Emancipation  Bill.  Then  the  mine  was  sprung. 
The  same  fatal  influence,  which  had  so  often  inter- 
fered in  the  decision  of  delicate  questions,  once  more 
appeared.  The  evicted  officials  hud  gained  the  ear 
of  the  King.  On  February  6th,  the  monarch  formally 
declared  his  disapproval  of  Fitzwilliam's  policy.  On 
the    1 8th,    Portland   directed    Fitzwilliam    to   oppose 


308  PITT 

Grattan's   measure.     On   the   23rd,  the  Viceroy  was 
recalled. 

The  retirement  of  Fitzwilliam  is  generally  regarded 
as  a  turning-point  in  Irish  history.  It  was  received 
at  first  with  feelings  of  dismay  by  the  masses  of  the 
people,  as  well  as  by  the  more  moderate  reformers. 
To  them  it  appeared  that  the  English  Government, 
after  exciting  the  strongest  hopes  amongst  the 
Catholics,  had  deliberately  handed  them  over  to  the 
vengeance  of  their  religious  opponents,  with  every 
circumstance  of  insult  and  provocation.  The  long- 
attempted  alliance  between  the  United  Irishmen  and 
the  Defenders  was  speedily  accomplished  ;  and  thus 
a  great  Catholic  organisation,  pledged  to  objects  far 
beyond  Catholic  Emancipation,  definitely  came  into 
existence.  On  September  21st,  the  Battle  of  the 
Diamond,  in  county  Armagh,  between  the  Defenders 
and  the  Protestants,  brought  into  being  the  exclu- 
sively Protestant  association  of  the  Orangemen  ;  and 
all  the  materials  of  a  civil  war  were  therefore  at  hand. 
Wolfe  Tone  had  been  compelled,  owing  to  his  com- 
plicity in  a  French  plot,  to  fly  to  America  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  ;  there,  in  Philadelphia  he 
found  himself  surrounded  by  men  who,  like  himself, 
were  exiles  from  their  native  land.  1  lamilton  Rowan, 
Xapper  Tandy,  and  Reynolds  were  amongst  his 
friends  ;  and  between  them  it  was  resolved  to  send 
a  mission  to  Paris,  to  invite  the  active  interference  of 
Erance  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland.  Wolfe  Tone  crossed 
the  sea  in  the  spring  of  1796 ;  and,  though  the 
Directory  were  extremely  ignorant  of  Irish  affairs, 
the)*  were  much  impressed  by  Tone's  earnestness,  as 


IRISH   DISAFFECTION  309 

well  as  by  the  representations  of  Lord  Edward  Fitz- 
gerald and  Arthur  O'Connor,  who  had  opened 
independent  negotiations  with  the  French  agents  at 
Hamburg.  The  direct  result  of  these  missions  was 
the  French  expedition  under  Hoche,  which  reached 
Bantry  Bay  in  the  winter  of  1796-7,  and  which, 
though  it  failed  to  effect  a  landing,  had  a  profound 
effect  in  stirring  popular  feeling  in  the  south-west. 

All  through  the  year  1797  the  discontent  became 
profounder.  The  United  Irishmen  assumed  a  more 
extreme  and  revolutionary  character,  openly  demand- 
ing the  abolition  of  rent  and  tithes,  and  declaring 
their  intention  of  separating  from  England.  In  the 
north,  the  rivalry  betwreen  Oransreism  and  Catholicism 
became  still  more  marked,  and  the  rival  colours  of 
yellow  and  green  a  yet  more  frequent  signal  of  dis- 
turbance. The  counties  of  the  south-east  became 
deeply  disaffected.  At  home,  the  English  Govern- 
ment, disheartened  by  the  failure  of  Lord  Malmes- 
bury's  negotiations  at  Paris,  and  paralysed  by  the 
mutinies  in  the  fleet  at  Spithead  and  the  Nore,  were 
at  their  wits'  end.  Even  Duncan's  glorious  victory 
at  Camperdown  did  not  destroy  the  possibility  of  an 
invasion  of  Ireland  ;  for  the  conspirators  still  had 
high  hopes  of  France,  and  it  is  probable,  that  if 
Napoleon  had  seriously  directed  his  mind  to  an 
;ittack  on  the  Irish  coast,  the  consequences  to  Eng- 
land would  have  been  disastrous.  Camden,  who  had 
succeeded  Fitzwilliam  as  Lord-Lieutenant,  was  in 
despair ;  and  based  his  chief  hopes  on  buying  off  the 
Catholic  clergy,  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Pope. 


3  I O  PI  TT 

At   last,    in    the    autumn    of    1797,    the    English 
Government   took    a    decided    step,    by   appointing 
Abercromby  Commander-in-chief  in  Ireland.     Aber- 
cromby  was  a  thoroughly  loyal  and  able  soldier  ;  but 
he  had  the  misfortune  also  to  be  an  honest  man.     As 
soon   as  he  had    taken   in   the   situation,   he  realised 
that  one  of  the  chief  obstacles  in  the  way  of  internal 
peace  was   the  violent  conduct  of  the  soldiery,  who, 
with    the    countenance    of    the    Castle    officials,   had 
almost    superseded    the   civil    magistrates    in   certain 
districts.     In  February,  1798,  Abercromby  issued  his 
famous    Orders,   directing    that,    in    suppressing    dis- 
turbances, the  military  officers  should  act  strictly  in 
subordination   to  the    directions   of  the   civil   magis- 
trates ;  and  that,  above  all,  no  measures  of  reprisal 
should    be    taken   against    districts   in    which    undis- 
covered crimes  had  been  perpetrated.     The  Protestant 
clique   were  furious ;    and   entered    into  direct    com- 
munication with  the  English  Government  to  procure 
Abercromby 's    recall.     In    their    treacherous    efforts, 
they  were  ably  seconded  by  Eden,  now  become  Lord 
Auckland,  who,  from   his   former  experience  as  Irish 
Chief  Secretary,    spoke    with    a     knowledge    which 
rendered    him    a    valuable    ally   in     England.     The 
scheme    soon    worked.     In    an     open    letter    to    the 
Lord-Lieutenant,    Portland    commented  severely  on 
Abercromby 's    conduct ;   and    that    officer,    notwith- 
standing   the    earnest     remonstrances    of    Camden, 
immediately  resigned.     He  was  replaced  by  General 
Lake,  the  extreme  advocate  of  military  severity  and 
Protestant  ascendency  ;  and  thus,  for  the  second  time 
in  three  years,  Ireland   learnt  that   the  wishes  of  the 


REBELLION   IN   IRELAND  3  I  I 

whole  country  were  as  nought  in  the  eyes  of  the 
English  Government,  compared  with  the  interests  of 
the  Protestant  clique  in  Dublin. 

The  immediate  result  was  the  outbreak  of  the 
Rebellion  in  Wexford,  and  the  occurrence  of 
dangerous,  though  not  so  persistent,  disturbances 
in  Kildare  and  Meath,  in  Antrim  and  Down. 
Happily,  the  distrust  aroused  among  the  republicans 
of  the  north  by  the  violent  proceedings  of  the  French 
Government,  did  much  to  abate  treasonable  feelings 
in  Ulster  ;  and  in  the  northern  province,  as  well  as  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Dublin,  the  disturbances  were 
soon  put  down.  But  in  Wexford  a  state  of  war  raged 
during  the  whole  summer  of  1798.  The  chief  towns 
of  the  county  were  alternately  in  the  hands  of  the 
rebels  and  the  Government  troops.  More  than  one 
detachment  of  the  latter  were  defeated.  One  of  the 
most  ominous  signs  of  the  movement  was  the  pro- 
minence of  Catholic  priests,  such  as  John  Murphy 
and  Roche,  whose  influence  over  the  Catholic 
peasantry  was  far  more  complete  than  that  of  the 
lay  agitators.  At  Midsummer,  however,  Camden 
retired  ;  and  Cornwallis,  who,  in  spite  of  his  failure  in 
America,  was  considered  one  of  the  ablest  generals  In 
the  British  service,  arrived  with  full  civil  and  military 
powers.  Before  his  vigorous  efforts  the  rebellion 
gave  way  ;  and  when,  in  August,  the  long-expected 
French  expedition  arrived  at  Killala  Bay,  in  the 
north  of  Connaught,  it  found  its  opportunity  gone. 
Although  the  French  commander  failed,  almost 
entirely,  to  arouse  the  native  population,  he  pushed 
on   to   Castlebar,   where,   on   August   27th,   Humbert 


3  I  2  PITT 

out-manoeuvred  and  defeated  General  Lake.  But 
Cornwallis  was  soon  approaching  with  large  forces  ; 
and,  on  September  8th,  Humbert  was  forced  to 
surrender  at  Ballinamuck.  The  small  native  risings 
which  had  taken  place  were  put  down  with  needless 
cruelty.  Small  expeditions  under  Napper  Tandy, 
and  the  French  Admiral  Bompard,  were  equally 
unsuccessful  ;  and  Wolfe  Tone,  who  was  with  the 
hitter's  force,  was  captured  and  condemned  to  death 
by  a  court-martial.  There  were  grave  doubts  of  the 
legality  of  the  sentence;  and  Curran  succeeded,  in 
obtaining  an  order  of  respite  from  the  King's  Bench. 
But  the  news  came  too  late  ;  for  Tone  had,  the  even- 
ing before,  inflicted  on  himself  a  fatal  wound. 

The  immediate  danger  was  now  at  an  end  ;  but 
the  English  Government,  thoroughly  alarmed  by 
the  peril  which  English  rule  in  Ireland  had  just 
encountered,  determined  upon  a  step  which  had  more 
than  once  been  mooted  in  official  correspondence 
during  the  previous  two  or  three  years,  and  which, 
they  fondly  hoped,  would  for  ewer  prevent  a  recurrence 
of  the  danger.  The  Viceroy's  speech,  delivered  at 
the  opening  of  the  session  in  January,  1799,  hinted, 
not  obscurely,  at  a  Legislative  Union.  Informal 
negotiations  with  representative  men  had  for  some 
months  been  proceeding  ;  and,  though  it  was  clear 
that  there  would  be  violent  opposition  in  certain 
quarters,  the  Government  were  not  without  hopes  of 
substantial  support,  especially  from  the  Catholics. 
This  fact  is,  of  course,  one  of  the  most  powerful 
weapons  of  those  who  urge  that  the  Catholics  were 
betrayed  by  Pitt  at  the  time  of  the  Union  ;  but  the 


lUBi 


hm 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &  Cot  kerell 

LORD   CASTLEREAGH    (1769-1822). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Thos.  Lawrence,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallei  y. 


3 1 4  PITT 

fairest  conclusion  from  somewhat  obscure  evidence 
appears  to  be,  that,  while  Pitt  honestly  believed  that 
the  Union  would  lead  to  Emancipation,  and  was 
himself  prepared  to  work  fur  Relief,  he  gave  no 
definite  pledge,  and  entered  into  no  absolute  bargain. 
On  such  a  subject  it  was  easy  for  both  parties  to  be 
honestly  mistaken. 

Unfortunately,  the  Catholics  had  no  representatives 
in  the  Irish  Parliament  ;  and  the  suggestion  of  the 
Viceroy's  speech  was  met  at  the  outset  by  violent 
and  overwhelming  opposition.  Though  Castlereagh, 
who  had  recently  placed  the  valuable  support  of  his 
active  services  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government,  by 
accepting  the  post  of  Chief  Secretary,  conducted  his 
case  with  great  skill,  an  amendment  to  the  Address 
in  the  Commons  was  only  lost  by  a  single  vote, 
almost  every  member  of  weight  supporting  it.  One  of 
the  most  powerful  supporters  of  the  Opposition  was 
Foster,  the  Speaker,  whose  opinion  carried  immense 
weight  with  the  independent  members  ;  and  Parnell, 
Ponsonby,  Fitzgerald,  Barrington,  Parsons,  Hardy, 
and  many  others,  though  some  of  them  had  held 
office,  pledged  themselves  to  support  the  Constitution 
of  1782.  But  Pitt  determined  to  persevere.  Owing 
to  the  secession  of  the  Opposition  in  the  English 
House  of  Commons,  the  Ministers  had  everything 
their  own  way  in  that  assembly  ;  and,  in  the  spring 
of  1799,  resolutions  in  favour  of  the  Union  were 
easily  carried,  despite  the  brilliant  and  strenuous  op- 
position of  Sheridan.  Thus  fortified,  the  English 
Ministry  resolved  on  measures  which,  even  at  that 
time,  could   only   be  justified   by  extreme  necessity. 


UNION    WITH   IRELAND  3  I  5 

A  large  sum  of  money  was  devoted  to  the  compensa- 
tion of  Irish  borough-mongers.  Honours  of  all  kinds 
were  freely  promised.  Every  pressure  that  the  Castle 
officials  could  devise  was  brought  to  bear.  Martial 
law  was  proclaimed  in  many  parts  of  the  country  ; 
and  troops  were  sent  over  from  England  in  large 
numbers.  It  was  even  proposed  to  introduce  a 
body  of  Russian  troops  ;  but  this  last  insult  was, 
happily,  spared.  Before  the  opening  of  the  session  of 
1800,  the  Viceroy  knew  that  he  commanded  a 
majority.  There  was,  of  course,  no  pretence  of  taking 
the  opinion  of  the  country  ;  and  the  attitude  of  the 
Government  was  clearly  shown  by  the  extraordinary 
provision  of  the  final  Representation  Act,  which  pro- 
vided that  the  existing  county  members  should  take 
their  seats  in  the  first  Parliament  of  the  United 
Kingdom  without  re-election,  and  that  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  surviving  boroughs  should  draw  lots 
for  a  similar  honour.  A  final  bribe  to  the  landowners 
was  offered  by  a  Tithe  Bill,  which  definitely  legalised 
the  refusal  of  the  graziers  to  pay  "  tithe  of  agistment." 
Before  the  end  of  March,  the  Resolutions  had  passed 
both  Houses  ;  and  the  Union  soon  became  an  accom- 
plished fact,  so  far  as  paper  could  make  it  so. 

The  terms  of  the  measure  are  very  well  known  ; 
and  the  briefest  summary  will  here  suffice.  The  Irish 
peerage  was  to  be  represented  in  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom  by  twenty-eight  members, 
chosen  for  life  by  their  fellow  peers  ;  the  United 
Protestant  Established  Church  of  England  and 
Ireland  by  an  archbishop  and  four  bishops  sitting  in 
rotation  of  their  sees,  and  changing  with  each  session  ; 


316  PITT 

the  Irish  Commons  by  one  hundred  members  chosen 
on  the  existing  franchise,  two  for  each  county,  and 
the  two  great  boroughs  of  Dublin  and  Cork.  Many 
of  the  old  corrupt  boroughs  were  disfranchised;  and 
the  remaining  thirty-one  were  allowed  but  one 
member  each.  Provision  was  made  for  the  ultimate 
reduction  of  the  Irish  peerage  to  a  maximum  of  one 
hundred  ;  but  a  somewhat  curious  clause  allowed  an 
Irish  peer,  not  being  a  representative  of  his  own 
order  in  the  House  of  Lords,  to  be  elected  for  any 
constituency  in  Great  Britain.  The  property  qualifi- 
cation of  members  was  assimilated  to  that  of  England. 
The  two  countries  were  to  enjoy  equal  commercial 
privileges  ;  and  no  prohibitions  were  to  be  allowed  in 
mutual  trade,  except  those  specified  in  a  brief  schedule 
to  the  Act.  The  public  debts  of  the  two  countries 
were  to  be  kept  distinct  ;  and  for  twenty  years  the 
proportion  of  the  actual  revenue  raised  in  Ireland 
was  to  be  two-seventeenths,  as  against  fifteen-seven- 
teenths in  England.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Scottish 
Union,  the  existing  laws  of  Ireland  were  to  remain 
in  force  until  altered  by  the  Parliament  of  the  United 
Kingdom  ;  and  the  existing  judicial  arrangements, 
with  the  exception  of  the  appeal  to  the  Irish  House 
of  Lords,  were  continued. 

The  Irish  Union  is  the  last  great  act  in  Pitt's 
career.  On  the  first  meeting  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment, in  1801,  he  deemed  himself  bound  in  honour  to 
introduce  a  Catholic  Relief  Bill  ;  and,  failing  to  obtain 
the  King's  consent,  he  tendered  his  resignation,  which 
was,  with  apparent  reluctance,  accepted.  So  far,  Pitt 
had   pursued  an   honourable  course  ;  but  he  allowed 


THE   PEACE    OF  AMIENS  3  1 7 

himself,  a  few  months  later,  to  be  persuaded  into 
giving  a  promise  that  he  would  never  again  raise  the 
Catholic  question  during  the  King's  lifetime.  The 
promise  was  not  made  as  a  condition  of  a  return  to 
office  ;  and  the  country  still  watched  for  two  years, 
with  grim  humour,  the  spectacle  of  Addington 
attempting  to  steer  the  bark  of  State  in  the  tornado 
of  Napoleonic  politics.  But  the  King  was,  apparently, 
very  ill  ;  it  seemed  that  he  had  not  long  to  live.  And 
l*i tt  appears  to  have  thought  it  not  worth  while  to 
run  the  risk  of  another  Regency,  or  a  violent  political 
struggle,  to  prevent  a  year  or  two  of  delay.  As  we 
know,  the  King  survived  his  brilliant  young  Minister 
by  fourteen  years  ;  and  the  Catholic  question 
remained  an  open  sore  during  that  period. 

Meanwhile,  the  Addington  Ministry,  backed  by 
the  generous  unofficial  help  of  Pitt,  patched  up  the 
hollow  peace  of  Amiens,  and  thus  gave  Napoleon  an 
invaluable  year  of  leisure  in  which  to  mature  his 
ambitious  plans.  In  May  of  1803,  the  great  war 
broke  out  again  ;  and,  with  one  accord,  the  eyes  of 
the  nation  turned  to  Pitt.  Even  Addington,  though 
he  never  doubted  his  own  supreme  fitness  for  office, 
was  prepared  to  bow  to  the  national  prejudice.  But 
we  have  it,  on  apparently  good  testimony,  that  he 
made  it  the  incredible  condition  of  an  alliance,  that 
the  chief  position  in  a  new  Cabinet  should  be  held 
by  a  figure-head,  in  order  that  he  and  Pitt  might 
stand  on  an  equal  footing.  So  great  is  British 
respect  for  vested  interests,  that  this  amazing  folly 
was  allowed  to  keep  out  Pitt  for  a  whole  twelve- 
month.     But    at    last    the    position    of  the    country 


3I<S  PITT 

became  too  serious  to  tolerate  conventional  polite- 
ness. The  King  was  compelled  to  commission  Pitt 
to  form  a  Cabinet.  Pitt  showed  extreme  generosity 
by  struggling  for  the  inclusion  of  Fox  ;  and,  when 
the  King's  almost  insane  prejudice  against  him  ren- 
dered a  breakdown  of  the  arrangements  probable, 
Fox,  to  his  immortal  honour,  not  only  insisted  on 
the  withdrawal  of  his  name,  but  promised  his  whole- 
hearted support  to  Pitt's  Government.  Once  more 
at  the  head  of  a  Cabinet  of  nonentities,  but  supported 
by  the  strong  feeling  of  the  country,  Pitt  plunged 
into  the  labour  of  forming  a  third  great  Coalition 
against  Napoleon.  But  the  task  was  too  much  for 
his  declining  strength.  Always  weak  in  health,  the 
last  few  years  had  pulled  him  down  almost  to  the 
edge  of  the  grave.  The  impeachment  of  Dundas 
(now  Lord  Melville),  for  malversation  in  his  old  office 
of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  was  a  mortal  blow  ;  for  it 
struck  at  one  of  the  rare  friendships  of  his  life.  He 
lived  to  hear  of  the  glorious  victory  of  Nelson  at 
Trafalgar  (October,  1805).  But  the  capitulation  of 
Ulm,  and  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the  Coalition  at 
Austerlitz,  completed  what  the  impeachment  of 
Melville  had  begun  ;  and  the  great  Minister  died 
at  the  beginning  of  1806,  leaving  his  country 
apparently  without  a  successor,  in  the  day  of  her 
gloom  and  despondency. 

It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  have  treated  the 
history  of  Pitt,  during  the  years  1 784-1 806,  as  the 
history  of  England.  At  least  so  far  as  politics  are 
concerned,  everything  centred  in  him.  Even  when 
he  was  not  the  author  of  a  scheme,  it  depended  on 


GOVERNMENT   OF  CANADA  3  IQ 

his  good  pleasure  whether  it  should   pass.     Mitford, 
in    1 791,  could   not   have  carried    his  Catholic   Relief 
Bill  without  the  consent  of  Pitt  ;  and   this  measure 
removed   man)-  of   the    harassing  restrictions   under 
which    the    English    Catholics    laboured.1      In    1792, 
Fox  had  successfully  brought  forward  his  celebrated 
measure,  which  enabled  juries  to  decide  on  the  whole 
question  of  an  alleged  libel,  instead  of  merely  finding 
the  fact  of  publication.     But  if  Pitt  had  opposed  the 
measure,  instead  of  supporting  it,  it  could  not  have 
been    carried.       Pitt's    own    great    measure    for    the 
government  of  Canada  in   1791,  though  it  has  passed 
almost    unnoticed,    was    a    generous    recognition    of 
colonial  progress.       The  huge  colony2    was  divided 
into  the  two  provinces  of  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  ; 
and    the   Protestant    and   Catholic   populations   were 
thus  left  each  to  follow  its  separate  destiny.      Repre- 
sentative institutions  were  created  for  each  ;    and  a 
very    beneficent   Regulation,  laid    down   in    1775,  to 
the  effect  that  occupiers  ot  land  should  not  be  com- 
pelled to  pay   tithes  to  support  a  religion  of  which 
they   disapproved,   was    made    permanent,  the    fund 
thus    created    being  devoted    to   the   endowment    of 
Protestant     churches.       Although     Pitt    abandoned 
Parliamentary  Reform  as  impracticable    at  the  out- 

1  Catholics  were  permitted  to  meet  lor  worship  in  registered  build- 
ings, they  were  relieved  from  penalties  for  non-attendance  at  the 
worship  of  the  Established  Church,  and  they  were  allowed  in  teach  in 
private  schools. 

-  It  must  be  remembered,  of  course,  that  the  name  Canada,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  did  not  cover  the  whole  territory  of  the  present 
Dominion.  Roughly  speaking,  ii  included  only  the  present  provinces 
of  Ontario  and  Quebec. 


320  PITT 

sot  of  his  career,  his  influence  was,  until  the  out- 
break of  the  French  war,  almost  always  on  the  side 
of  liberal  movements,  such  as  Wilber force's  great 
crusade  against  the  iniquities  of  slavery. 

As  a  personal  influence  on  his  age,  Pitt  may 
be  said  to  have  succeeded  to  the  great  position 
of  his  father.  lie  was  the  inspirer  of  national 
enthusiasm,  the  organiser,  if  not  of  victory,  yet  of 
heroic  resistance  against  that  overwhelming  ambition 
which  his  father  had  instinctively  foreseen.  With 
little  of  the  great  Chatham's  unerring  judgment  of 
men,  or  his  swift  comprehension  of  the  politics  of  a 
whole  world,  he  had  the  same  generosity,  the  same 
contempt  for  merely  personal  aims,  the  same  strict 
sense  of  personal  honesty,  also,  it  must  be  confessed, 
a  good  deal  of  the  same  arrogance  and  impatience, 
which  had  distinguished  Chatham's  career.  Me  had, 
moreover,  qualities  and  attainments  conspicuously 
wanting  in  Chatham.  He  was,  in  spite  of  drawbacks, 
a  born  Parliamentary  tactician.  Nothing  in  the  annals 
of  the  House  of  Commons  has  ever  equalled  the 
confidence  and  skill  with  which  the  youthful  Premier, 
in  the  closing  months  of  1783,  met  and  defeated  an 
Opposition  which  included  the  most  brilliant  orators, 
and  the  most  experienced  Parliamentary  managers, 
of  that  or,  perhaps,  of  any  other  time.  And  his 
genius  for  finance,  in  which  the  elder  Pitt  had  been 
singularly  wanting,  enabled  him,  not  merely  to 
acquire  and  keep  great  influence  over  the  growing 
commercial  classes  of  the  country,  but  to  prepare  the 
nation  to  face,  with  undiminished  credit,  the  appalling 
sacrifices  of  the  great  war. 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &  Cockerell 

SIR   FRANCIS   BURDETT   (1770-1844). 

Portrait  by  Slue,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


22 


:>2  2  PITT 


As  a  permanent  factor  in  the  history  of  English 
politics,  Pitt  may  be  said   to  have  done  two   things. 
In   the  first   place,  he  broke   for  ever  the  system    of 
personal    government    by   the    King's   Friends.       No 
doubt,  as  this  chapter  has  shown,  he  was  more  than 
once  thwarted  by  the  obstinacy  of  George    III.     But 
that  is  a  very  different  thing  from  being  a  tool  of  the 
Court.      After  the  great  event  of  17K4.  Pitt  held  office, 
not  by  the  favour  of  the   King,  but  by  the  popular 
mandate.       The    very  fact   of  his   resignation  in   I  So  I, 
is  a  proof  of  the  change  which  had  come  over  English 
politics     during     his    tenure    of    power.       North,    in 
similar   circumstances,  would    have   bowed   his   head 
and    retained   his  office.      It   may   be   said,  that    Pitt 
acquiesced   in   his  defeat,  by  resuming  office   in    1 804 
without  a  recantation  by  the  King.      but  in   1 S04  the 
country    was    in    the  throes    of  a   continental   crisis, 
which  would  have  rendered  any  attempt  to  stir  great 
domestic     issues     positively    criminal.        Even     Fox 
admitted    this.      And    it    is   quite   clear  that,   though 
l'itt  recognised  the  limits  of  his  authority,  yet,  while 
he  was  in  office,  lie  was  the  real  power  in  the  State. 
1  le  made  short  work  of  any  traitor  or  sycophant,  from 
Thurlow   downwards,  who  dared  to  thwart  his  will. 
In    fact,  the   supreme  authority  of  l'itt   in    his   own 
Cabinets  laws  him   open   to   the  charge  of  assuming 
too    much   rather  than    to.,   little   power.      With   him, 
as  with  one  or  two  leaders  of  outstanding  authority 
since    his    day,    the    essential    characteristic    of    the 
Cabinet  System,  as  a  representation  of  political  con- 
nection, as  well  as  of  popular  approval,  was  in  danger 
of  being  forgotten. 


CONSERVATISM   OF   PITT  Z2l 

Finally,  Pitt  may  be  said  to  have  reconstituted  the 
Tory  party  as  an  element  in  politics.  At  first 
clouded  by  suspicion  of  Jacobitism,  then  despised 
as  the  obedient  slave  of  Court  influence,  the  Tory- 
party  renewed  itself  under  Pitt  as  the  champion  of 
legitimate  authority,  against  innovation  and  specula- 
tive criticism.  Pitt,  no  doubt,  called  himself  a  Whig; 
but  he  was  equally  removed  from  the  sordid  intrigues 
of  the  Grenvilles  and  the  Bedfords,  and  the  more 
generous  Liberalism  of  Fox  and  Sheridan.  With  the 
rapidly  rising  Radicalism  of  Sir  Francis  Burdett, 
Charles  Grey,  and  Beaufoy,  he  had  absolutely  no 
sympathy.  It  is  true  that  he  kept  his  head  in  the 
panic  of  the  French  Revolution,  longer  than  any  other 
prominent  statesman  ;  far  longer,  for  example,  than  the 
philosophic  Burke.  But  it  was  inevitable,  in  his  posi- 
tion, that  he  should  become  the  champion  of  authority, 
the  great  exponent  of  the  prerogative,  the  bulwark 
against  the  rising  waves  of  reform  and  anarchy. 
And  thus  there  gathered  round  him  all  the  defenders 
of  the  established  order,  in  religion,  politics,  and 
society.  The  defeat  of  the  Coalition  at  the  polls  in 
1784  may  be  said  to  have  abolished  the  Whig  country 
gentleman  ;  the  whole  weight  of  that  most  indepen- 
dent and  most  respectable  section  of  the  House  went 
over  to  the  youthful  Minister.  And  when  he  died,  at 
the  age  of  forty-six,  the  great  body  of  solid  citizens, 
both  in  Parliament  and  the  country,  whom  he  had 
trained  and  persuaded  into  an  unwavering  loyalty  to 
the  Government,  became  the  backbone  of  that  new 
Conservative  part)-  which  was  to  fight  the  battle 
against  Reform. 


XI 

REACTION    AND   REFORM 

The  nine  years  which  followed  the  death  of  Pitt 
were,  almost  entirely,  years  of  war  ;  but  of  a  war 
which,  unlike  the  diplomatic  struggles  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  a  profound  and  permanent 
effect  on  the  social  organisation  of  Europe.  Tin- 
dying  statesman  had  touched  the  secret:  which 
explained  alike  the  apparently  incredible  success  of 
Napoleon,  and  his  ultimate  downfall.  Europe,  said 
Pitt,  had  trusted  in  vain  to  her  Governments  to  stem 
the  tide  of  French  aggression  ;  she  must  now  rely 
upon  the  energies  of  her  peoples.  At  last  it  was 
beginning"  to  dawn  upon  the  minds  of  the  ruling 
classes,  that  the  irresistible  might  of  France  was  due 
to  a  Revolution  which,  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
history,  had  enabled  a  country  to  put  aside-  those 
traditions,  class  prejudices,  and  vested  »->  interests, 
which  had  bound  with  meshes  of  iron  the  wholesome 
sinews  of  the  nation,  and  stifled  its  best  brains  with  a 
numbing  code  of  etiquette.  This  was  the  true 
explanation   of  the  astounding  fact,  that  the  ragged 

324 


FORF.h    \      tXD    DOMESTIC  AFFAIRS  325 

troops  of  the  Republic,  led  by  inexperienced  boys, 
had  over-run  a  terror-stricken  Europe,  beaten  the 
finest  armies  of  Austria  and  Russia  on  man}'  a 
battlefield,  and  shaken  down  thrones  and  principali- 
ties, while  the  subjects  of  the  conquered  States  looked 
idly  on,  more  than  half  in  sympathy  with  the  invaders 
of  their  native  lands.  Only  on  the  sea,  where  the 
bad  traditions  of  the  old  order  still  hampered  the 
gallant  efforts  of  the  French  sailors,  were  the  foes  of 
France  victorious.  And  there  the  French  yielded  to 
the  English  navy,  which,  almost  alone  of  English 
institutions,  recognised  simple  merit,  rather  than 
birth  or  inherited  wealth,  as  a  title  to  command. 
The  hard  conditions  of  life  at  sea  offered  no  attraction 
to  the  incapable  parasites  of  a  Government  majority, 
who  greedily  absorbed  the  commissions  in  the  army, 
and  the  offices  in  the  civil  service. 

True  it  is  that,  almost  from  the  very  first,  the 
French  war  had  been  supported  in  England  by 
the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  ;  and  England  had 
therefore  been  the  soul  of  the  opposition  to  the 
aggressive  crusade  of  the  French  Directory.  After 
the  first  outburst  of  enthusiastic  sympathy  with 
the  Revolution  had  passed  away,  the  great  mass 
of  the  English  people  had  turned  indifferently  from 
that  abstract  philosophy  of  Rousseau,  which  had 
lashed  the  French  into  democratic  fervour.  The 
Englishman  had  grievances  enough  of  his  own  ;  but 
they  were  not  those  of  the  French  peasant  and 
artisan.  Bad  as  the  English  Government  was,  and 
unsympathetic  as  were  the  ruling  classes  to  the 
new    life   which    was   springing  into  being  with    the 


326  REACTION  ANb   REFORM 

Industrial  Revolution,  there  was,  in  England,  little  of 
that  systematic  oppression  of  the  poor,  that  heartless 
parade  of  Court  folly,  that  reckless  squandering  of 
the  national  resources,  which  had  disgraced  the  reign 

of  Louis  XV.  And  so  it  is  probable,  that  Burke's  cele- 
brated Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  unjust  as 
they  are  to  France,  and  lamentable  wide  of  the  true 
causes  of  the  Revolution,  really  represent  the  feelings 
of  the  average  Englishman  in  1790.  There  is  in 
them  little  of  that  philosophic  grasp  which  makes 
the  Thoughts  on  the  Present  Discontents  a  masterpiece 
for  all  time.  They  are  disfigured  by  exaggerations 
and  bitterness,  that  mark  the  writer  as  stricken  with 
a  panic  which  clouds  his  better  judgment.  The 
Burke  of  1770  would  not,  surely,  have  spoken  of 
"the  profaneness  of  talking  of  the  use,  as  affecting 
the  title  to  property";  nor  would  he,  in  his  senti- 
mental pity  for  an  insulted  King  and  Queen,1  have 
forgotten  the  groans  of  the  millions  who  had  suffered, 
in  silent  agon)-,  under  the  oppressions  of  the  ancien 
regime.  But,  in  abandoning  the  lofty  standard  of 
his  earlier  style,  in  adopting  the  specious  arguments, 
the  want  of  taste,  the  gross  prejudices  which  dis- 
figure the  pages  of  the  Reflections  on  the  Revolution 
in  France,  it  is  probable  that  Burke,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  appeared  as  a  truly  representa- 
tive man.  At  any  rate  it  is  clear  that,  in  England, 
despite  the  influence  of  Paine's  works,  and  the 
teachings  of  Price  and  Priestley,  the  philosophy  of 
the  Revolution  never  obtained  any  real  hold  on  the 

1  It  must  be  remembered  thai    Burke's  pamphlet    was  written  long 
before  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention  had  become  really  violent. 


THOMAS   PAINE   (l737-l8°9)- 

Portrait  by  Jarvis. 


328  RE  tCT/ON    AND    KI-J-Oh'M 

people;  and  it  is  intensely  significant  of  the  differ- 
ences of  national  character  that,  in  France,  the  forward 
movement  should  have  been  dominated  by  the  flimsy 
rhetoric  and  graceful  style  of  Rousseau,  in  England 
by  the  solid  argument  and  the  sesquipedalian  prose 
of  Bentham,  Mill,  Mackintosh,  Romilly,  and  the  rest 
of  the  Utilitarian  school. 

All  the  more  disgraceful,  therefore,  was  the  conduct 
i  >\  the  successive  Ministries  which,  in  England,  under- 
took the  task  of  stamping  out  free  thought  and  free 
speech.  It  is  often  loosely  urged,  that  the  vital 
necessity  of  presenting  a  united  front  against  French 
aggression  alone  impelled  the  Ministers  to  a  course 
of  action  which  they  detested.  But,  unhappily,  the 
facts  will  not  accord  with  this  plausible  theory.  The 
gagging  policy  of  the  period  falls  into  three  distinct 
stages,  only  one  of  which  is  covered  by  the  French 
war.  There  is,  first,  what  may  be  called  the 
"Erskine"  group  of  cases,  in  which  that  distin- 
guished advocate  succeeded,  on  almost  every  occasion, 
in  procuring  the  acquittal  of  the  prisoner  ;  thereby 
demonstrating,  by  the  best  of  proofs,  that  the 
Government  had  not  even  the  excuse  of  popular 
opinion  to  back  it.  This  group  includes  the  prosecu- 
tion of  Baillie  (1778)  for  showing  up  a  nefarious  job 
of  Lord  Sandwich  at  Greenwich  Hospital  ;  of  the 
Dean  of  St.  Asaph  (1784),  for  publishing  a  pamphlet 
by  Sir  William  Jones  on  Parliamentary  Reform  ;  and 
of  Stockdale  (1789),  for  publishing  Logan's  defence 
of  Warren  Hastings.  Inasmuch  as  the  States- 
General  did  not  meet  at  Versailles  till  after  the  last 
of  these  prosecutions  had   been   ordered,  the  excuse 


Photo  byl  [  Walker  &  Codkei ,  11 

THOMAS,    LORD    ERSKINE   (1750-1823). 

Portrait  by  Sir  William  Ross,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


336  Reaction  An£>  REfiokM 

of  the  French  war  hardly  avails  in  these  cases. 
Second,  there  is  the  string  of  measures  which  begins 
with  the  prosecution  of  Paine  (1792),  continues  with 
those  of  the  Morning  Chronicle  ( 1 793),  Walker 
(1794 — the  "popgun"  case),  Frost  (1795),  and  the 
monstrous  attempt  to  convict  Hardy,  Home  Tooke, 
Thelwall,  and  others,  of  "constructive"  treason 
(1794),  and  culminates  in  the  Treason  and  Sedition 
Acts,  and  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act 
1795.  For  this  series,  there  is,  of  course,  the  excuse 
of  the  French  war.  But,  when  the  national  risings 
in  Europe  had  culminated  in  the  crowning  victory-  of 
Waterloo,  when  Napoleon  had  been  banished  to  a 
lonely  rock  in  the  Atlantic,  when  Paris  had  been  in 
the  hands  of  the  Allies,  then,  one  might  have  thought, 
the  rulers  of  the  peoples  would  have  turned  with 
gratitude  to  the  masses  whose  blood  and  courage  had 
delivered  them  from  destruction,  and  frankly  invited 
their  co-operation  in  the  reconstruction  of  European 
society.  Instead  of  this  happy  result,  we  find,  on 
the  Continent,  the  Holy  Alliance,  formed  with  the 
half-avowed  purpose  of  stifling  popular  aspirations, 
and,  in  England,  the  brutal  code  known  as  the  Six 
Acts. 

For  this  last  stage  of  the  gagging  policy  the  best 
excuse  is,  perhaps,  the  striking  dearth  of  first-rate 
ability  in  the  ranks  of  the  official  classes.  The 
death  of  Pitt  had  been  closely  followed  by  that  of 
Fox,  whose  Ministry  of  "  All  the  Talents"  (1806) 
is  remarkable  chiefly  for  an  attempt,  happily  never 
repeated,  to  include  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's 
Bench    (Lord    Ellenborough)    in    the    Cabinet.     In 


THE  INDUSTRIAL    WORLD  33 1 

spite  of  the  presence  of  Lord  Sidmouth  (Addington) 
the  Ministry  of  1806  was  undoubtedly,  even  after  the 
death  of  Fox,  a  Whig  body ;  and  its  acceptance,  in 
1807,  of  Wilberforce's  famous  measure  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  slave  trade,  shows  that  it  was  prepared 
to  give  evidence  of  its  faith.  Its  proposal  in  the 
same  year,  to  allow  Catholics  to  receive  commissions 
in  the  arm}-  and  navy,  was  a  further  sign  of  vitality. 
But  the  Ministry,  if  well  meaning,  was  lamentably 
weak.  Not  a  single  man  of  real  strength  of  character 
was  to  be  found  in  its  ranks.  And,  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  King,  it  consented  (though  the  royal 
permission  to  introduce  the  measure  had  been  pre- 
viously obtained),  to  withdraw  the  Catholic  Bill. 
Such  contemptible  conduct  met  with  the  fate  which 
it  deserved.  The  King  was  emboldened  to  demand  a 
further  pledge  from  his  Ministers,  to  the  effect  that 
they  would  not  even  mention  to  him,  at  any  time, 
the  subject  of  the  Catholic  claims  ;  and  the  duped 
Cabinet,  now  realising  the  true  position  of  affairs, 
resigned  in  March,   1807. 

With  the  resignation  of  the  Grcnville  Cabinet,  the 
real  interest  in  domestic  matters  passes  away  from 
the  governing  classes  to  that  new  industrial  world 
which  was  growing  so  rapidly  in  England,  and  of 
which,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the  rulers  of  the  country 
knew  but  little.  The  note  of  the  long  series  of  Ton- 
Governments,  which  stretches  from  the  elections  of 
1807  to  the  elections  of  1830,  is  mediocrity.  The 
successor  of  Pitt,  designated,  it  is  said,  by  the  dying 
Minister  himself,  was  Perceval,  an  amiable,  but  not 
inspiring    lawyer,   who,    at    first    under    the    nominal 


332  K*  t(   T/OA      I  \/>   REFORM 

leadership  of  Portland,  and  afterwards  in  his  own 
name,  maintained  a  steady  attitude  of  resistance  to 
the  new  social  forces,  till  his  assassination  in  icSi2. 
On  his  death,  the  lead  passed  to  Lord  Liverpool,  a 
son  of  that  Jenkinson  who,  in  the  last  days  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  most  worthily  represented 
the  dying  traditions  of  "  personal  government" 
Liverpool,  though  the  old  King  had  now  definitely 
relapsed  into  imbecility,  inherited  much  of  his 
father's  policy  ;  and  the  Prince  Regent,  having  long 
ago  renounced  that  Whiggism  which  he  had  professed 
as  the  friend  of  Fox  and  Sheridan,  likewise  adopted 
his  father's  views.  The  only  men  of  real  mark  in  the 
political  world  were  Canning,  whose  untimely  death 
in  [827  removed  the  last  hopes  of  a  peaceful 
solution  of  pressing  problems,  and  Huskisson,  a 
great  financier,  whose  personal  weight  was,  however, 
too  small  to  sway  the  policy  of  the  Cabinet.  The 
real  Director  of  the  Government  measures,  during 
the  long  and  dreary  period  of  reaction,  was  Lord 
Eldon,  a  fanatic  hater  of  reform   in   all   its  aspects. 

Perhaps  we  may  date  the  definite  beginning  of 
the  strife  in  1809,  when  the  terrible  scandal  connected 
with  the  name  of  the  Duke  of  York,  the  King's  second 
son,  excited  widespread  indignation  in  the  country. 
The  Duke,  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  arm)-, 
had  repeated,  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale,  the 
abominations  of  the  days  of  Charles  II.  and 
George  I.,  when  the  favour  of  a  royal  mistress  had 
been  the  surest  road  to  promotion.  But  a  far  more 
important  step  in  the  direction  of  reform,  was  the 
founding,  in  the   year  1X1  i,  of  the  two  great  associa- 


POPULAR   DISC0NTEN1  333 

tions  for  popular  education,  the  Royal  Lancastrian 
(afterwards  the  British  and  Foreign  Schools) 
Society,  and  the  National  Society  for  Educating 
the  Poor  in  the  Principles  of  the  Established  Church. 
A  natural  result  of  the  spread  of  popular  education 
was  the  enormous  success  of  Cobbett's  Political 
Register,  which,  in  the  year  1S1 5,  boldly  reduced  its 
price  from  a  shilling  and  a  halfpenny  to  twopence, 
and  at  once  became  the  first  really  popular  newspaper. 
The  close  of  the  war  was  marked  by  an  immediate 
outburst  of  popular  discontent.  The  high  prices 
obtained  by  the  manufacturers  during  the  continu- 
ance of  hostilities  fell  rapidly  ;  and  the  long-antici- 
pated expansion  of  commerce  did  not  take  place. 
The  Continent  was,  in  fact,  too  exhausted  by  the 
terrible  drain  of  the  war,  to  purchase  goods  in  large 
quantities  ;  and  the  establishment  of  a  Protectionist 
policy  abroad  still  further  hampered  English  foreign 
trade.  The  disbanding  of  the  troops  swelled  the 
ranks  of  the  unemployed  ;  and  the  iniquitous  Corn 
Law  of  1 81 5,  in  addition  to  its  damaging  effects  on 
the  import  trade,  sent  the  prices  of  necessaries  up  to 
a  famine  standard.  The  absurd  system  of  Poor 
Relief,  inaugurated  by  the  "  Speenhamland  Act"  of 
1795,  showed  the  deficiencies  of  Gilbert's  Act  (1782) 
in  the  clearest  light.  The  idle  labourer,  who  married 
and  begat  children  in  reckless  disregard  of  the  con- 
sequences, and  who  had  been  looked  upon  as  a 
national  benefactor  when  the  market  for  recruits  was 
high,  was  now  a  source  of  real  danger  to  the  country; 
for  his  wants  were  supplied  by  the  vicious  practice  of 
supplementing     wages     from    the    rates  ;    whilst    the 


334  /(V    ICT/ON   AND    REFORM 

thrifty  artizan,  whose  decent  pride  maintained  him  in 
a  hopeless  struggle  with  falling  wages  and  increasing 
prices,  and  whose  income  was  not  swelled  by  inflated 
rents,  bore  the  chief  brunt  of  the  distress.  Quite 
naturally,  the  artizan  classes  took  advantage  of  their 
newly  acquired  knowledge,  to  organise  for  the  im- 
provement of  their  condition  ;  and  the  Trade  Union 
movement,  and  the  celebrated  co-operative  experi- 
ments of  Owen,  mark  the  period  as  one  of  the  seed- 
plots  of  modern  industrial  conditions.  The  first  of 
these  developments  came  into  direct  conflict  with 
the  repressive  policy  inherited  from  the  social  system 
of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  it  was  on  this  point  that 
the  first  victory  of  Reform  was  won. 

A  series  of  mass  meetings  held  at  Bermondsey,  in 
the  winter  of  i<Si6  7,  under  the  turbulent  leadership  of 
William  Hunt,  thoroughly  alarmed  the  Government  ; 
and  when,  in  the  following  February,  the  Regent 
was  insulted  on  his  way  to  open  Parliament,  a 
definite  campaign  of  suppression  was  organised. 
The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  once  more  suspended  ; 
and  the  famous  circular  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  addressed 
to  the  Lieutenants  of  the  counties,  recommended 
wholesale  arrests  of  suspected  persons.  A  new 
Sedition  Act  was  hastily  passed  ;  and,  despite  the 
"Derbyshire  Insurrection  "  of  the  same  year  (1 817), 
it  seemed  as  though  the  Government  would  win  an 
easy  victory  But  the  feelings  of  the  nation  were 
now  thoroughly  roused  ;  and  the  violent  and  brutal 
repression  of  the  Peterloo  meeting  near  Manchester, 
with  which  the  Government  openly  identified  itself, 
brought    the  country  to  the  verge  of  civil  war.       In 


DEATH   OF   GEORGE    III.  335 

tne  existing-  state  of  Parliamentary  representation, 
popular  feeling  had  no  chance  of  making  itself  heard 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  except  by  agitation  ;  and 
the  elections  of  the  Peterloo  year  itself  (1819)  had 
given  the  Government  a  huge  majority.  This 
majority  the  Government  proceeded  to  use,  by 
enacting  a  repressive  code  which,  for  completeness 
and  brutality,  stands  alone  in  English  history.  The 
"  Six  Acts,"  as  they  were  termed,  entirely  prohibited 
the  using  of  arms  except  under  official  authority,  and 
authorised  the  magistrates  to  search  all  houses  in 
which  weapons  were  suspected  of  being  concealed. 
They  forbade  the  assembling  of  any  open-air  meeting 
of  more  than  fifty  persons  without  previous  notice  to 
the  magistrates  ;  they  strengthened  the  already 
severe  laws  against  libel  ;  the}-  deprived  persons 
accused  of  misdemeanours  of  the  time  previously 
allowed  them  for  preparation  of  their  defences  ;  and 
they  extended  the  newspaper  duties  to  periodicals, 
which  had  hitherto  escaped. 

The  year  which  followed  the  passing  of  the  Six 
Acts  is  of  some  mark  in  English  political  history. 
The  death  of  the  old  King  was,  in  itself,  an  unimpor- 
tant event  ;  for  George  III.  had  ceased  for  nearly  ten 
years  to  take  any  share  in  public  matters.  The  great 
blessing  of  oblivion,  that  real  consolation  of  old  age 
for  public  men,  had  come  to  him  ;  the  nation  had 
long  since  forgotten  the  appalling  series  of  blunders 
and  obstinacies  which  condemn  George  III.,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  historian,  as  one  of  the  very  worst 
monarchs  who  ever  occupied  the  throne  of  England. 
The  generation  of  1820  knew  him  only  as  a  harmless 


336  REACTION   AND   REFORM 

and  forsaken  old  man,  of  blameless  private  character' 
overwhelmed  by  domestic  grief.  But  the  horrible 
scandal  connected  with  the  prosecution  of  the  Queen 
of  George  IV.,  the  vindictive  conduct  of  the  new 
King,  his  coarse  extravagance  at  a  time  of  great 
national  distress,  the  indiscreet  policy  of  the  Queen 
herself  and  her  advisers,  the  resignation  of  the  one 
Minister  (Canning)  who  was  credited  with  popular 
sympathies,  all  tended  to  alienate  the  country  from 
the  Government,  and  even  from  the  institution  of 
monarchy  itself.  The  formal  adoption  of  the  title  of 
"  Radical"  by  the  extremer  members  of  the  reforming 
party,  and  the  gradual  introduction  of  the  modern 
terms  of  "  Conservative  "  and  "  Liberal,"  in  the  place 
of  the  former  "Tory"  and  "Whig,"  all  mark  the 
passing  away  of  the  older  order,  and  the  approaching 
triumph  of  popular  government.  Baffling  as  are  the 
minor  changes  within  the  sacred  circle  of  office  during 
the  next  few  years,  the  great  lines  of  national  cleavage 
shew  themselves  with  clearer  and  clearer  distinct- 
ness. There  is  a  powerful  party  which  represents 
vested  interests,  including  the  landowners,  the  clergy, 
and  the  wealthier  among  the  professional  classes, 
whose  new  name  of  "  Conservatives  "  marks  a  substi- 
tution of  loyalty  to  established  institutions  for  the 
older  Tory  attachment  to  the  person  of  the  monarch. 
Then  comes  the  less  numerous,  but  more  active  and 
intelligent  part}'  known  as  the  "  Liberals,"  which 
comprises  the  more  advanced  of  the  older  "Whigs," 
and  wins  its  way  amongst  the  rising  classes  of 
successful  manufacturers  and  smaller  professional 
men,    open    to    ideas   of    material    advancement,  but 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &  Cockcrcll. 

RIGHT    HON.    GEORGE    CANNING,    M.P.    (177O-1827). 

Bust  by  Chaittrey,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


23 


5*8  REACTION    AND   REFORM 


JO 


somewhat  unsympathetic  towards  popular  ambitions. 
Finally,  we  sec  the  new  and  powerful  body  of 
Radicals,  composed  almost  entirely  of  the  artizan 
classes,  active,  numerous,  and  passionately  devoted  to 
the  new  order;  but  ill-organised,  and  liable  to  split 
up  in  the  many  conflicting  claims  of  its  enthusiasms. 
In  this  last  body  we  may  clearly  trace  two  distinct  im- 
pulses— the  impulse  towards  political  reform,  no  doubt 
the  indirect  result  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  belief 
in  political  power  as  in  itself  a  good  thing  ;  and  the 
impulse  towards  social  regeneration,  which  uses 
political  enthusiasm  as  a  lever,  but  counts  it  only  as 
a  means  to  an  end.  The  former  impulse,  headed 
by  such  men  as  Hunt,  Cobbett,  and  Hone,  ends 
finally  in  Chartism  ;  the  latter,  under  the  far  abler 
guidance  of  men  like  Place,  Parkes  of  Birmingham, 
Owen,  and  Joseph  Hume,  works  steadily  for  improved 
education,  sanitation,  hours  of  labour,  and  similar 
direct  benefits. 

It  is  curious  that  the  first  great  Radical  victor)-  was 
won  in  a  Tory  1  louse  of  Commons  with  the  greatest 
apparent  ease.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  absurd  state 
of  the  franchise  was,  in  this  instance,  the  most 
powerful  safeguard  of  the  Reformers.  A  Parliament 
which  contained  even  a  fair  representation  of  manu- 
facturers would  hardly  have  repealed  the  Combination 
Laws  without  a  desperate  struggle.  But  the  great 
landowners  had  not  yet  come  to  regard  a  combination 
amongst  agricultural  labourers  as  a  possibility  ;  and 
they  looked  with  complete  indifference  upon  the 
sweeping  measure  which  Joseph  Hume,  under  the 
skilful  guidance  of  Place,  piloted  through  Parliament 


Photo  by]  [Walker  &■  Ox  ka ell. 

JOSEPH    HUME    (I777-I855). 

Portrait  by  J.  W.  Walton,  111  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


340  RE  tt  T/<  '  V     IX/>    REFORM 

in  1824.  With  great  wisdom,  the  few  Radicals  In 
the  House  of  Commons  treated  the  Bill  as  of  slight 
importance,  and  refrained  from  making  speeches 
The  great  anxiety  of  the  framers  of  the  measure 
seems  to  have  been  to  discourage  uninformed  rivals, 
with  schemes  of  their  own,  and  to  overcome  the 
scruples  of  Lord  Lauderdale,  who  approved  of  the 
measure,  but  thought  it  beneath  the  dignity  of  the 
Lords  to  read  evidence  printed  by  the  Commons. 
Scarcely  a  legislator  appears  to  have  realised — not 
even  such  men  as  lluskisson  and  Peel  that,  in 
abolishing  a  set  of  barbarous  old  statutes,  Parliament 
was  implicitly  sanctioning  one  of  the  most  powerful 
social  forces  of  the  coming  time.  Strangest  of  all, 
even  Place  himself  and  his  friends  seem  to  have 
thought  that  the  measure  would  be  the  end  of  Trade 
Unionism,  which  they  regarded  merely  as  a  protest 
against  the  antiquated  laws  which  made  it  felony  to 
summon  a  "  Chapiter  or  congregation  "  of  masons, 
and  a  misdemeanour  to  attend  it,  and  a  penal  offence 
"not  to  enterprise  what  another  hath  begun,"  and, 
generally  speaking,  treated  the  artizan  as  the  unworthy 
slave  of  the  capitalist.  It  should  not  be  forgotten, 
however,  that  much  of  the  confidence  with  which  the 
measure  was  received,  was  due  to  the  able  advocacy 
of  McCulloch,  the  Scotch  economist. 

Scarcely  had  the  Bill  of  1X24  become  law,  when 
the  manufacturers  took  alarm.  The  triumph  of  the 
previous  summer  had,  undoubtedly,  excited  the  hopes 
of  the  artizans  to  an  unreasonable  degree.  Luring 
the  autumn  of  [824,  although  trade  was  good,  several 
strikes  occurred  ;   and  the  employers  quickly  realised 


THE    WORKING-CLASS   MOVEMENT  341 

that  the  old  machinery  of  repression  was  now  gone. 
They  besieged  the  doors  of  the  Ministers,  and  soon 
made  important  converts  of  Huskisson  and  Peel, x 
who,  on  the  reassembling  of  Parliament  in  the  spring 
of  1825,  led  a  motion  for  a  Committee  to  inquire  into 
the  working  of  the  Act  of  1824,  supporting  their 
proposal  by  speeches  well  calculated  to  arouse  the 
prejudices  of  the  vested  interests  represented  in  the 
House.  The  one-sided  attitude  of  the  Ministry  is 
well  shown  by  the  fact  that  their  resolution,  as  finally 
carried,  limited  the  scope  of  the  Committee  to  an 
investigation  of  the  conduct  of  the  workmen  ;  and  that 
this  was  no  accident  is  proved  by  the  further  fact,  that 
the  Government  representatives  on  the  Committee 
stoutly  refused  to  entertain  any  enquiry  respecting 
the  conduct  of  the  employers  But  they  were  dealing 
with  a  man  who,  though  he  never  sat  in  Parliament, 
proved  himself  a  past  master  in  the  arts  of  Parliamen- 
tary warfare.  True,  urged  Place,  that  the  wording 
of  the  Committee's  reference  excluded  a  direct 
enquiry  into  the  conduct  of  the  employers  ;  but 
it  certainly  did  not  confine  the  enquiry  to  the 
conduct  of  workmen  against  whom  allegations 
of  misbehaviour  were  made.  Accordingly  Hume, 
at  Place's  instigation,  insisted  on*  the  admission 
of  many  respectable  leaders  of  the  working-class 
movement ;  and  their  evidence  was  most  damaging 
to  the  partial  and  prejudiced  testimony  brought 
forward      by     the      employers.       The     Government 

1  It  is  somewhat  singular  thai  Mr.  Thursfield,  in  his  monograph 
on  Peel,  does  not  (apparently)  allude  in  the  most  distanl  way  to  Peel's 
conduct  on  the  repeal  of  the  Combination  Laws. 


342  REACTION    AND    REFORM 

behaved  with  scandalous  unfairness,  refusing,  in 
many  cases,  the  expenses  of  the  men's  witnesses, 
speaking  of  the  accused  men  as  "  acquitted  felons," 
and  striving  to  keep  the  proceedings  of  the  Com- 
mittee a  dead  secret.  But  the)-  were  no  match  for 
the  tireless  energy  of  Place  and  his  friends,  who 
actually  persuaded  the  Attorney-General  Copley 
(afterwards  Lord  Lyndhurst  to  refuse  to  draw  up 
the  Government  measures.  The  powerful  Radical 
press  began  a  campaign  of  agitation  in  the  country. 
Place  openly  defied  the  Committee,  who  threatened 
to  commit  him  for  contempt,  but  were  not  foolish 
enough  to  put  their  threats  into  execution.  One 
by  one  the  obnoxious  clauses  of  the  new  measure 
were  abandoned,  and,  finally,  the  repealing  Act  of 
the  previous  year  was  virtually  re-enacted,  with  the 
addition  of  one  or  two  sections  directed  against 
intimidation  ;  while  the  right  of  combination  to 
reduce  hours  of  labour  and  increase  wages  was 
expressly  admitted. 

Thus  ended  the  first  great  legislative  triumph  of 
the  Reform  Party.  It  would  be  unfair  to  ascribe 
the  opposition  to  the  measure  entirely  to  selfishness- 
There  were,  no  doubt,  a  large  number  of  humane 
men  in  the  ranks  of  the  Government  supporters,  and 
even  among  the  employers,  who  believed  that  the 
welfare  of  the  country  depended  on  the  main- 
tenance of  a  system  which  left  the  interests  of 
the  labourers  and  arti/.ans  at  the  mercy  of  the 
propertied  classes.  This  view  was  a  natural  inheri- 
tance from  the  status  system  of  the  Middle  Ages; 
and   it    ma)-,  in     its    origin,    have    been    justified    by 


CONDITION   OF   IRELAND  343 

facts.  But  the  conditions  had  wholly  changed.  The 
capital  of  the  country  was  rapidly  passing  from  the 
hands  of  the  landowners  to  those  of  the  great  manu- 
facturers, who  had  made  their  fortunes  by  precisely 
the  same  methods  which  they  now  proposed  to  forbid 
to  the  artizans.  Many  of  the  latter,  owing  to  the 
zeal  of  the  educational  reformers,  and  the  spirited 
efforts  of  the  Benthamites,  were  quite  as  capable  of 
exercising  their  own  judgments,  as  the  landowners  and 
capitalists  themselves.  The  old  Combination  Laws 
had,  doubtless,  nominally  controlled  the  employers  as 
well  as  the  operatives.  But  it  was  notorious  that, 
as  regarded  the  former,  they  had  long  been  a  dead 
letter.  Nay,  with  the  repeal  of  the  Apprenticeship 
Laws,  and  the  abandonment  of  the  system  of  fixing 
wages  by  the  Justices,  the  capitalists  had  definitely 
rejected  the  old  scheme  of  labour  regulation,  much 
to  the  dislike  of  the  labouring  classes  ;  and  thus  there 
was  no  reasonable  excuse  for  the  retention  of  the 
Combination  Laws. 

In  the  next  great  development  of  Reform,  the 
centre  of  interest  is  shifted  from  England  to 
Ireland.  The  results  of  the  Union  had,  at  first, 
appeared  to  be  favourable  to  the  smaller  country. 
The  artificial  inflation  in  the  prices  of  agricultural 
produce,  due  to  the  long  war  and  the  Corn  Laws, 
multiplied  the  number  of  small  holdings  ;  for  the 
great  proprietors,  confident  in  being  able  to  secure 
the  votes  of  their  tenants,  adhered  to  the  practice 
of  creating  forty-shilling  freeholds.  But  the 
increase  in  rents  led  to  extravagance  on  the  part  of 
the    gentry,    and,    as    the    abolition    of    the    Dublin 


3  |  1  REACTION  AXD   REFORM 

Parliament  reduced  the  attractions  of  the  Irish 
capital,  the  evil  of  absenteeism  rapidly  increased. 
In  the  absence  of  its  natural  leaders,  the  control  of 
the  Protestant  interest  naturally  passed  to  the  middle 
and  lower  ranks  of  the  north  ;  and  Orangeism,  with  its 
bitter  prejudices,  was  deliberately  fostered  by  the 
English  Government,  as  a  means  of  maintaining  the 
English  supremacy.  With  the  close  of  the  war,  the 
natural  reaction  followed  ;  and  many  of  the  evils 
of  1793  reappeared.  The  financial  arrangements  of 
the  Union  had,  in  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Royal 
Commission  of  1894,  "imposed  upon  Ireland  a  burden 
which,  as  events  showed,  she  was  unable  to  bear"; 
and  matters  were  not  remedied  by  the  consolidation, 
in  1816,  of  the  National  Debts  of  the  two  countries. 
The  enormous  increase  in  the  expenditure  of  Great 
Britain  during  the  war  had  borne  hardly  upon  the 
revenues  of  Ireland  ;  for  the  ratio  of  taxation  between 
the  two  countries  had  been  fixed  by  the  Union  at  ~\ 
to  !,  and,  while  the  wealth  of  Great  Britain  supported, 
with  comparatively  slight  difficulty,  the  increased 
burden,  the  effort  was  too  much  for  the  sister 
island.  This  assertion  is  abundantly  proved  by  two 
significant  facts.  While  in  Great  Britain  71  per  cent. 
of  the  expenditure,  dining  the  years  1801-16,  was 
defrayed  by  taxation,  and  only  29  per  cent,  by  loans, 
in  Ireland  only  49  per  cent,  could  be  raised  by  taxa- 
tion, leaving  51  per  cent,  to  be  obtained  by  loan. 
And,  though  the  fiscal  arrangements  of  both  countries 
were,  of  course,  in  the  hands  of  the  British  Ministers, 
it  was  found  impossible,  long  before  the  end  of  the 
war,  to  raise  the   Irish  loans  in   Ireland,  so  great  was 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL,    M.P.    (1775-I847). 

Portrait  by  Mill  renin,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gaiters 


546  REAi   T10N   AND    REFORM 

the  exhaustion  of  the  country.  The  war  had,  in 
effect,  saddled  Ireland  with  an  enormous  debt 
(upwards  of  1  1 1  millions  ,  the  interest  on  about 
80  per  cent,  of  which  was  payable  to  British  fund- 
holders.  Nevertheless,  no  change  in  the  ratio  of 
taxation  was  made  in  [820,  when  the  period  fixed 
for  revision  by  the  Act  of  Union  arrived.  Finally, 
even  the  fiscal  reforms  of  Huskisson  threw  an 
additional  burden  on  Ireland;  for  the  sweeping 
abolition  of  Customs  duties  on  the  imports  peculiar 
to  Great  Britain,  imposed  heavier  taxation  on  the 
staple  articles  which  were  common  to  the  two 
countries. 

At  this  juncture,  the  cause  of  Ireland  was  cham- 
pioned by  the;  greatest  political  agitator  of  modern 
times,  Daniel  O'Connell.  A  fervent  Catholic,  a 
superb  orator,  a  skilled  and  successful  advocate,  a 
man  of  great  judgment  and  astuteness,  an  indefatig- 
able worker,  a  kindly  character — he  was  ideally 
fitted,  not  only  to  arouse  enthusiasm  amongst  his 
fellow-countrymen,  but  (which  was  even  more  import- 
ant) to  restrain  it  within  moderate  bounds.  He 
found  the  Catholic  cause  languishing  from  the  ineffici- 
ency of  its  aristrocratic  leaders,  and  hampered  by  a 
split  over  the  famous  question  of  the  "  Veto,"  i.e.,  the 
proposal,  favoured  by  the  Papal  See,  to  allow  the 
State  a  veto  on  the  appointment  of  Catholic  bishops 
( )btaining  a  seaton  the  ( 'atholic  ( !ommittee,  he  rapidly 
assumed  the  direction  of  its  affairs;  and  from  that 
moment  (about  1X101  the  claims  of  the  Catholics 
assumed  a  new  energy.  O'Connell  at  once  grasped 
the    fact,    that    the   establishment,    in    1795,    of    the 


OCONNELL  S    CAMPAIGN  347 

Catholic  College  at  Maynooth,  had  placed  a  new 
and  powerful  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  Catholic 
party.  Before  this  date,  the  bulk  of  the  Irish  priest- 
hood had  been,  if  not  foreigners,  at  least  educated 
abroad  ;  and  although,  in  the  later  stages  of  the 
Rebellion,  their  influence  had  been  felt,  they  were,  in 
general,  largely  alien  in  sympathies  from  the  masses 
of  their  flocks.  Hut  now  the  native  priests,  educated 
at  Maynooth,  had  obtained  a  firm  hold  on  the 
peasantry  ;  and  the  improvement  in  their  material 
condition,  and  the  increased  efficiency  of  their  minis- 
trations, resulting  from  the  repeal  of  the  persecuting 
laws,  had  rendered  them  a  real  power  in  the  land. 
With  the  priesthood  O'Connell  entered  into  a  firm 
alliance  ;  and  when,  in  1823,  he  formed  the  Catholic 
Association,  they  rallied  as  one  man  to  his  standard. 
Catholic  Emancipation  was  preached  from  every 
Catholic  pulpit;  and  the  "Catholic  Rent,"  the  sub- 
scriptions of  the  poor,  soon  became  a  formidable 
fund,  available,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  direct 
agitation,  but  for  the  defence  of  the  Catholic 
peasantry  against  every  form  of  oppression. 

It  cannot  be  denied  also,  though  O'Connell  would 
have  been  unwilling  to  admit  the  fact,  that  the 
Parliament  at  Westminster  was  a  far  more  hopeful 
tribunal  in  the  malfcer  of  the  Catholic  claims  than  the 
old  packed  Parliament  on  College  Green.  In  spite  of 
the  obstinate  prejudices  of  George  III.,  a  very  con- 
siderable body  of  Whips  had  always  favoured 
religious  equality.  The  Liverpool  Ministry  of  1 812 
had  expressly  treated  Catholic  Emancipation  a"s  an 
open  question,     Canning  was  known  to  sympathize 


348  REACTION   AND    REFORM 

with  it,  and  ("aiming  vvas  looked  upon  as  the  man  oi 
the  future.  Another  rising  politician,  Lord  John 
Russell,  gave  it  his  hearty  support.  Castlereagh  was 
known  to  be  in  favour  of  it.  The  Radicals  were,  of 
course,  hound  to  approve  it.  Grattan's  Bill  of  1813 
was  lost  only  by  a  minority  of  four.  Even  the 
House  of  Lords,  in  1 8 16,  only  rejected  a  motion  in 
favour  of  Relief  by  four  votes.  In  18 17,  as  has  been 
said,  a  measure  throwing  open  the  Army  and  Navy  to 
Catholic  officers  was  carried  without  serious  opposi- 
tion ;  and,  in  the  same  year,  and  again  in  1819, 
Grattan's  motions  in  the  House  of  Commons  were 
only  defeated  by  the  narrowest  majorities.  In  1821, 
after  Grattan's  death,  a  Catholic  Relief  Rill  actually 
passed  the  Lower  House;  and,  in  1822,  the  Ministry, 
under  the  influence  of  Canning,  definitely  adopted  a 
measure  to  admit  Catholic  Peers  to  the  House  of 
Lords. 

But,  by  this  time,  the  fears  of  the  Protestants  had 
been  thoroughly  aroused  ;  and  they  determined  to 
repeat  the  move  which  had,  so  often  before,  been 
successful  in  disappointing  the  hopes  of  the  Catholics. 
Their  great  champion,  Lord  Eldon,  approached  the 
King,  and  soon  persuaded  the  feeble  mind  of  George 
IV.  that,  by  consenting  to  a  Catholic  Emancipation 
Bill,  he  would  be  violating  that  Coronation  Oath  by 
which  he  had  bound  himself  to  maintain  the  Protes- 
tant religion  as  by  law  established.  It  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  George  IV.  should  have  somewhat 
vague  ideas  as  to  the  value  of  an  oath.  But  it  is 
indeed  surprising,  that  men  of  trained  intellect,  pro- 
fessing  legal  and    constitutional    knowledge,    should 


LORD    ELDON    (175I-1838). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Thos.  Lawrence,  P.R.A.,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


350  REACTION   AND   REFORM 


have  gravely  pretended  to  believe  in  a  fallacy  which 
had  been  exposed  even  before  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  which  is,  further,  of  so  patent  an 
absurdity,  that  even  a  schoolboy  might  laugh  at  it. 
When  William  of  Orange  swore  to  maintain  the 
Protestant  religion,  he  made  a  solemn  promise  for 
himself  and  his  successors  to  the  country  which  he 
had  been  invited  to  govern;  hut  he  never  promised 
to  thwart  the  wishes  of  that  Parliament  which 
had  conferred  upon  him  the  Crown.  Even  if  it  be 
admitted,  that  Catholic  Emancipation  involved  a 
failure  to  maintain  the  Protestant  religion  (a  very 
large  admission),  there  cannot  be  the  smallest  ground 
for  saying  that  an  assent  by  the  Crown,  in  its  legisla- 
tive capacity,  to  a  measure  which  had  received  the 
sanction  of  both  Houses  of  the  legislature,  would 
have  been  a  violation  of  the  Coronation  oath.  The 
object,  the  perfectly  well  known  and  avowed  object, 
of  the  Coronation  oath,  was  to  prevent  a  repetition 
of  the  conduct  of  James  II..  who,  in  his  Executive 
capacity,  had  defied  and  evaded  the  express  law  of 
the  land,  and  acted  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the 
great  majority  of  his  subjects.  It  was  newer  intended 
to  prevent  legislative  changes,  sanctioned  by  the 
legislature  of  the  country.  It  is  a  cardinal  principle 
of  the  Constitution,  that  no  authority  can  tie  the 
hands  of  the  Crown  in  Parliament, —  not  even  an 
express  Act  of  Parliament  itself.  To  den}-  such  a 
proposition,  would  be  to  deny  the  possibility  of  pro- 
gress, and  to  assert,  that  unborn  generations  may  be 
for  ever  subjected  to  the  despotism  of  long-dead 
ancestors,  exercised  in  circumstances  wholly  different 


RELIGIOUS    TOLERATION  35  f 

from  those  of  the  present  clay,  and  without  a  possi- 
bility of  foreseeing  or  considering  the  altered  eon- 
ditions  of  a  future  time. 

It  is,  therefore,  much  to  be  regretted,  that  Lord 
Liverpool's  Ministry,  in  its  later  days,  though  allow- 
ing measures  of  Catholic  Relief  to  be  passed  in  the 
Commons  again  and  again,  sat  idly  by  whilst  they 
were  thrown  out  by  the  House  of  Lords.  At  last, 
however,  with  the  death  of  Lord  Liverpool,  and  the 
accession  to  power  of  Canning  (1827),  the  prospects 
of  the  Catholics  brightened  ;  for  Canning  steadily 
refused  to  pledge  himself  to  oppose  them.  So 
certain  did  it  seem  that  the  new  Minister  would  take 
up  the  subject,  that  the  extreme  Tories,  Wellington, 
Peel,  and  Eldon,  retired  from  office.  But  the  sudden 
death  of  Canning  once  more  dashed  the  hopes  of  the 
reformers ;  and  when,  after  the  troubled  period  of 
Lord  Goderich's  premiership  had  come  to  an  end 
(1828),  the  seals  of  office  were  once  more  entrusted 
to  the  Duke  and  Peel,  it  seemed  as  though  all  hope 
were  gone. 

But,  in  truth,  the  very  apparent  hopelessness  of  the 
situation  called  out  the  fighting  qualities  of  the 
reformers.  Almost  immediately  upon  the  Duke's 
assumption  of  office,  Lord  John  Russell's  Bill 
for  the  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts 
secured  the  assent  of  Parliament.  To  outward 
seeming,  this  measure  effected  little  change,  for  the 
Test  and  Corporation  Acts  had  long  been  rendered 
nugatory  by  annual  Indemnity  Acts,  which  absolved 
from  legal  penalties  those  persons  who  had  acted  in 
defiance  of  the    old    restrictions ;    and,    as   a   matter 


352  REAL  TION  AND   REFORM 

of  fact,  Lord  John  Russell's  measure  was  chiefly 
directed  to  the  relief  of  Protestant  dissenters.1  But  it 
was  a  hopeful  augury  ;  and,  though  the  Ministry 
became  even  more  sternly  Tory  by  the  withdrawal 
of  Huskisson  and  the  "  Canningite  "  Whigs  in  the 
same  year  (1828),  O'Connell  determined  on  a  bold 
stroke.  The  Ministerial  changes  consequent  on  the 
withdrawals  necessitated  the  re-election  for  the  county 
of  Clare  of  Mr.  Vesey  Fitzgerald,  who  had  been 
appointed  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Mr. 
Fitzgerald  was  a  popular  man,  not  unfavourable  to 
Catholic  claims.  Nevertheless,  the  Catholic  Associa- 
tion determined  to  oppose  him.  It  had  previously 
secured,  against  the  opposition  of  the  landowners,  the 
return  of  Protestant  candidates  who  pledged  them- 
selves to  Catholic  Relief.  It  now  resolved  to  secure 
the  election  of  a  Catholic.  O'Connell  himself  was  put 
forward  ;  and,  in  spite  of  Ministerial  prestige  and 
territorial  support,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  O'Connell's 
victory  would  mean  at  least  temporary  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  constituency  (for  of  course  the  Liberator, 
as  a  Catholic,  would  not  take  the  Parliamentary 
oath),  Fitzgerald  was  hopelessly  beaten. 

The  effect  of  the  move  was  electrical.  It  threat- 
ened, not  merely  Protestant  ascendency,  but  social 
securitv.  What  had  been  done  in  County  Clare 
could  be  done  at  the  next  election  in  two-thirds  of 
the  Irish  constituencies.     If  the  Association  chose,  it 

1  This  was  the  second  of  Peel's  three  famous  "surrenders."  The 
first  was  on  the  currency  question  of  1819,  the  last  on  the  Corn  Laws. 
.Mr.  Thursfield  has  happily  characterised  Peel's  greatness  as  that  ol 
••  insight  rather  than  foresight." 


RIGHT    HON.   SIR   ROBERT   PEEL,   BART.,   M.P. 
(1788-1850.) 

Portrait  by  Linnell,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


24 


354  REACTION  ASD   REFORM 

could,  instead  of  putting  forward  honourable  Catholics, 
who  could  not  take  their  seats,  nominate  hireling 
Protestants,  who  would  strictly  obey  orders.  A  new- 
power,  of  incalculable  consequence,  would  thus  be 
introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons.  Worse  still, 
it  was  impossible  to  say  how  long  O'Connell  would 
be  able  to  retain  the  control  of  those  forces  which  he 
had  hitherto  so  admirably  kept  within  the  bounds  of 
order.  The  Protestant  ( )rangemen  and  "  Bruns- 
wickers,"  highly  organised,  were  spoiling  for  a  fight  ; 
and  the  myrmidons  of  the  Association,  equally  well 
drilled,  were  hardly  the  men  to  baulk  them. 

The  Duke  surveyed  the  situation  with  the  cool  eye 
of  an  experienced  general  ;  and  decided  for  sur- 
render. Peel,  already  more  than  half  convinced, 
agreed.  I  low  the  prejudice's  of  the  King  were  over- 
come will  never  be  exactly  known  ;  but,  after  some 
hesitation,  he  gave  a  reluctant  consent.  The  sterner 
'lories  were  furious.  Peel  was  the  special  object  of 
their  hatred  ;  and  upon  him  the  storm  fell.  He 
deemed  it  right  to  resign  his  seat  for  Oxford 
University,  was  beaten  by  Sir  Robert  Inglis  at  the 
new  election,  and  with  difficulty  secured  a  seat  at 
\\  estbury  in  time  to  take  charge  of  the  Government 
measure  in  the  House  of  Commons.  But  the  docile 
followers  of  the  Government,  supported  by  the  force 
of  the  Whig  Opposition,  triumphed  over  all  obstacles. 
A  meaningless  Hill  was  passed,  in  February,  1829, for 
the  suppression  of  the  Catholic  Association.  The 
forty-shilling  freeholders  in  Ireland  were  disfran- 
chised by  a  measure  which  raised  the  qualification  to 
XiO.     But   the  emancipating   Bill,  after  passing  the 


LORD   BROUGHAM. 
(1779-1868.) 

Portrait  by  James  Lo'nsdale,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


356  REACTION   AND    REFORM 

House  of  Commons  by  a  very  large  majority,  was 
carried  in  the  Lords  by  a  substantial  margin  ;  and 
received  the  royal  assent  on  April  13th.  All  offices 
and  positions  in  the  State,  with  one  or  two  important 
exceptions,  were  thrown  open  to  Catholics  ;  and 
the  Oath  of  Supremacy  was  modified,  to  enable  them 
to  sit  in  Parliament. 

On  June  26,  1830,  George  IV.  died  ;  and  on  July 
24th  Parliament  was  dissolved.  There  followed 
immediately  an  event  which  gave  a  powerful  impulse 
to  popular  feeling  in  England,  viz.,  the  French 
Revolution  of  July.  Charles  X.,  the  Bourbon  King, 
attempted  to  abolish,  by  a  coup  d/lltat,  the  liberty 
guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  of  1S1 5.  He  failed 
ignominiously,  and  fled  the  country,  being  replaced 
by  Louis  Philippe,  the  head  of  the  Orleanist  branch 
of  the  royal  house,  with  a  Charter  of  public  liberties. 
Polignac,  the  arbitrary  Minister  of  the  deposed  King, 
was  an  intimate  friend  of  Wellington  ;  and  his  failure 
reacted  strongly  on  the  English  constituencies.  At 
the  elections  in  August  the  Tories  lost  heavily,  and, 
not  content  with  the  warning,  took  their  revenge  of 
Peel,  by  deserting  the  Government  on  Sir  Henry 
Parnell's  motion  for  a  reform  of  the  Civil  List.  The 
Ministry  was  defeated,  and  resigned  ;  and  a  Whig 
Cabinet,  under  the  leadership  of  Earl  Grey,  came 
into  office.  Before  the  defeat  of  the  Government 
there  had  been  a  great  cry  for  Parliamentary 
Reform  ;  and  Brougham  had  secured  a  place  for  a 
motion  on  the  subject  on  the  very  day  before  the 
resignation.  The  new  Ministers  refused  to  take 
office,  except  on  the  condition  that  Reform  should 


PARLIAMENTARY  REFORM  357 

be  a  Cabinet  measure  ;  and  the  King,  who  was 
credited  with  Liberal  sympathies,  accepted  the 
terms.  Thus,  almost  before  it  had  realised  the  fact, 
the  country  was  plunged  into  a  great  national 
struggle  ;  for  Wellington  had  but  a  few  weeks  before 
stated  his  complete  and  unqualified  opposition  to 
the  movement.  And  Peel  was  passionately  with 
him. 

The  rival  parties  now  marshalled  their  forces. 
On  the  one  side  were  the  clergy,  the  landowners, 
the  army  and  navy,  the  universities  and  the  Inns 
of  Court,  and  the  government  officials — in  a  word, 
the  vested  interests  of  the  country.  On  the  other 
stood  the  manufacturers  of  the  North,  the  shop- 
keepers and  small  tradesmen,  and  the  great  mass 
of  the  new  artizan  classes.  The  Cabinet  behaved 
with  great  wisdom.  They  eliminated  their  brilliant 
but  indiscreet  supporter,  Brougham,  from  the  House 
of  Commons,  by  offering  him  the  splendid  prize  of 
the  Great  Seal.  The  nominal  leadership  of  the 
Commons  was  entrusted  to  Lord  Althorpe,  a  popular 
and  loyal  member  of  the  Cabinet ;  but  the  intro- 
duction of  the  great  measure  was  reserved  for  a 
younger  man  of  greater  tact  and  ability,  though  of 
no  commanding  genius.  A  Committee,  consisting 
of  Lord  Duncannon,  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord 
Durham,  and  Sir  James  Graham,  was  appointed  to 
draw  up  alternative  schemes.  Two  plans  were 
produced  by  this  Committee.  That  of  Lord 
Durham  proposed  to  divide  the  country  into  equal 
electoral  districts,  and  to  assign  a  member  to  each. 
This  scheme  represented,  of  course,  the  views  of  the 


35^  A7    ICTION     1  \7<    REFORM 

Radicals.  It  appeared  to  have  the  merits  of  justice 
and  simplicity  ;  but  it  had  also  one  fatal  defect.  It 
could  not  have  been  carried  without  a  violent 
revolution.  Lord  John  Russell's  plan  was  thoroughly 
characteristic,  both  of  English  methods,  and  of  the 
views  of  that  great  Liberal  party  which  he,  perhaps 
more  than  any  other  man,  represented  and  formed 
into  coherent  action.  It  proposed  to  disfranchise 
entirely  fifty  of  the  smallest  and  most  corrupt 
boroughs,  and  to  deprive  fifty  more  of  half  their 
representation  ;  to  add  the  seats  thus  gained  to  the 
counties  and  the  large  towns  ;  to  substitute  for  the 
anomalies  of  the  borough  franchise  an  uniform  rental 
qualification  of  a  comparatively  small  amount ;  and 
to  add  the  same  qualification  to  the  existing  county 
franchise.  Though  the  plan  involved  a  measure  of 
great  length,  its  general  outline  was  perfectly  simple  ; 
it  involved  no  decided  breach  with  the  past  ;  it 
destroyed  nothing  which  any  reasonable  man  could 
defend  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  satisfied  the 
aspirations  of  those  who  saw  that  the  old  Whig 
plan,  of  peddling  with  details,  had  already  been 
condemned  on  all  sides.  When,  after  the  Christmas 
recess,  Lord  John  Russell  introduced  the  measure 
to  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  singularly  skilful 
speech,  it  was  received  by  the  whole  of  the  reforming 
elements  in  the  country  with  an  almost  unanimous 
shout  of  welcome ;  and  the  opponents  of  Reform 
settled  themselves  down,  with  a  dogged  persistency, 
to  dispute  the  Bill  inch  by  inch.  At  last  the  battle 
was  to  be  fairly  fought  out. 

Perhaps  it  is  necessary  here  to  explain  very  briefly 


Fholo  by] 


[Walker  &  Cockeicll. 
LORD   JOHN    RUSSELL  (1792-1878). 
Portrait  by  Sir  Francis  Grant,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


360  Reaction  And  reform 

the  features  of  the  old  electoral  system,  which 
aroused  so  much  ill-feeling  in  the  country.  From 
the  earliest  days  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
county  representation  had  been  fixed  at  two  members 
each  ;  and  a  statute  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  had 
confined  the  county  franchise  to  those  having  "  land 
or  tenement  to  the  value  of  forty  shillings  by  the 
year  at  least."  This  somewhat  vague  enactment, 
originally  intended  as  a  restrictive,  not  as  an  enabling 
measure,1  had  long  been  construed  to  mean,  that 
ownership  of  a  freehold  estate  in  land  worth  at  least 
£2  a  year  was  the  sole  qualification  for  the  county 
franchise.  This  qualification  would,  with  the  long 
continued  fall  in  the  value  of  money,  have  placed  the 
county  franchise  on  a  very  democratic  footing,  but 
for  the  fact  that,  with  the  disappearance  of  the 
yeoman  class,  and  the  substitution  of  tenants  holding 
under  leases  for  years  or  yearly  tenancies,  small 
freeholds  had  almost  entirely  disappeared  from  the 
country  districts,  with  the  evil  exception  of  those 
created  expressly  for  voting  purposes.  Thus,  the 
wealthy  farmer,  however  long  his  lease,  the  copy- 
holder, however  substantial,  and  the  retired  trades- 
man, who  lived  in  a  hired  house,  were  totally  excluded 
from  the  county  franchise,  which  was  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  the  great  landowners,  the  beneficed  clergy,2 

1  The  origin  of  the  county  franchise  is  wrapped  in  obscurity.  Even 
so  early  as  the  fifteenth  century  it  was  a  matter  of  dispute. 

-'  When  Archbishop  Sheldon,  in  1665,  somewhat  irregularly  re- 
nounced, on  behalf  of  the  Church,  the  privilege  of  voting  the  clerical 
taxation  in  Convocation,  the  beneficed  clergy  obtained  votes  in  respect 
of  their  parsonages  and  glebe  lands.  The  same  transaction  ultimately 
gave  rise  to  the  claim  of  the  clergy  t<>  stand  for  Parliament,  a  claim 


THE   BOROUGH  SYSTEM  36 1 

and  such  dependents  of  great  families  as  had  been 
given  cottages  for  their  lives.  Notwithstanding  these 
anomalies,  the  political  reputation  of  the  counties 
stood  high  ;  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  no  great 
popular  feeling  could  have  been  aroused  by  a 
scheme  to  reform  their  representation  alone.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  landowners,  many  of  them 
Whigs,  had  stood  manfully  against  the  corruption 
of  the  Court ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  appearance 
of  the  Indian  "  Nabobs,"  with  their  boundless  wealth, 
that  county  elections  became  venal. 

Very  different  was  the  position  of  the  Parliamentary 
boroughs.  The  principle  on  which  these  were  origi- 
nally selected  is  a  matter  upon  which  historians  fail  to 
agree  ;  but  it  is  clear  that,  for  at  least  a  century  after 
the  establishment  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
choice  of  borough  constituencies  fluctuated  from  elec- 
tion to  election,  and  was  largely  in  the  discretion  of 
the  Crown  officials.  In  the  fifteenth  century  the  right 
to  return  members  to  Parliament  began  to  be  granted 
by  corporation  charters  ; l  and  these,  of  course,  could 
not  be  violated  in  quiet  times.  But  many  of  the 
boroughs  were  only  too  anxious  to  escape  the  honour 
of  being  represented,  which  involved  the  payment  of 
higher  taxation,  and  the  wages  of  their  members. 
And  it  long  remained  easy  for  the   Crown  to  alter 

which  was  successfully  asserted  by  Home  Tooke  in  1801,  but 
formally  abolished  in  the  same  year.  The  exclusion  applies  to  clergy- 
men of  the  Established  Church,  whether  beneficed  or  not,  and  to 
Catholic  priests ;  but  not,  of  course,  to  the  Protestant  dissenting 
clergy. 

1  The  little  borough   of  Much    Wenlock,  in  Shropshire,    claims  (I 
know  not  with  what  accuracy)  to  be  the  oldest  example  of  this  practice. 


362  kEACtlON     IX/>    REFOKWl 

the  balance  of  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons  by 
the  expedient  of  sending  writs  to  boroughs,  not 
hitherto  represented,  which  were  peculiarly  under 
Crown  influence.1  With  the  growing  importance 
of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
this  practice  was  freely  adopted  ;  and  the  boroughs 
thus  created  ultimately  became  the  rottenest  of  the 
"  rotten  boroughs  "  of  the  Reform  time.  The  pre- 
rogative of  the  Crown  to  create  new  constituencies 
of  this  kind  fell  into  disuse  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  ; 2  and  thus,  at  the  very  epoch  in  which 
the  development  of  commerce,  and  the  growth  of 
new  industries,  were  rapidly  shifting  the  whole  balance 
of  interests,  and  building  up  new  towns  of  great 
wealth  and  population,  the  representative  system 
became  rigid  and  unalterable,  save  by  Act  of 
Parliament.  So  clear  was  the  case  for  Reform,  that 
even  the  sweeping  measures  of  the  Long  Parliament, 
adopted  by  Cromwell  in  1654,  met  with  the  approval 
of  so  strong  a  royalist  and  conservative  as  Lord 
Clarendon,  who  describes  the  step  taken  by  Cromwell 
as  "  an  alteration  fit  to  be  more  warrantably  made, 
and  in  a  better  time." 

But  the  anomalies  of  distribution  did  not  end  the 
evils  of  the  borough  system.  The  anomalies  of  the 
franchise  were  still  worse.  There  was  no  uniform 
qualification  like  the  forty  shilling  franchise  in  the 
counties.  The  writs  directed  to  the  boroughs  had 
usually    been    silent    on    the    methods    of   election  ; 

1  E.g.)  in  the  Duchy  of  Cornwall. 

2  The  last  example  of  the  creation  of  a  Parliamentary  borough  by 
mere  writ  is  said  to  have  been  Newark,  in   1673. 


ANOMALIES   OF   THE   FRANCHISE  363 

and  only  here  and  there  had  an  Act  of  Parliament 
interfered.  As  a  consequence,  the  franchise  was,  in 
each  case,  governed  purely  by  local  custom  ;  and  the 
confusion  and  uncertainty  were  almost  unfathomable. 
In  some  instances  the  owners  of  certain  tenements 
were  alone  allowed  to  vote,  in  others  the  town  council 
monopolised  the  franchise,  in  others  the  right  was 
vested  in  the  freemen  of  certain  industrial  gilds,  in 
others  a  still  smaller  body,  such  as  the  leet  jury, 
claimed  the  sole  privilege  of  voting,  in  others  the 
monopoly  was  claimed  by  certain  mysterious  persons 
known  as  "  potwallopers  ;  "  only  in  a  few  cases  all 
the  burgesses  paying  "  scot  and  lot  "  were  entitled. 
This  evil  extended  far  beyond  its  obvious  conse- 
quences ;  for  it  gave  rise  to  endless  disputes  about 
the  results  of  elections,  and  these  disputes  were,  at 
any  rate  until  the  passing  of  Grenville's  Act  in  1770, 
decided  by  committees  of  the  House,  or  by  the 
House  itself,  on  the  purest  principles  of  party 
prejudice.  One  of  the  minor  evils  of  the  old  state 
of  affairs  was,  the  inordinate  length  of  the  time 
during  which  the  poll  was  kept  open  ;  an  evil  which, 
combined  with  a  process  of  open  voting,  led  directly 
to  the  practice  of  bribery  and  intimidation.  But 
perhaps  enough  has  been  said  to  explain  the 
situation  in    1831. 

It  may  appear  incredible,  that  men  of  eminence 
and  public  spirit  should  be  found  to  defend  in 
principle  the  anomalies  of  the  unreformed  system. 
But  they  who  find  a  difficulty  in  believing  the  facts 
underestimate  the  tenacity  of  vested  interests.  When, 
by  the   Revolution  of  1688,  the   supreme  control  of 


364  REACTION  AND   REFORM 

the  country  passed,  virtually,  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  the  possession  of  a  seat  in  that  body 
became  an  object  of  great  value.  Its  holder,  if  he 
were  a  man  of  wealth,  birth,  or  ability,  might  hope 
to  rise  to  the  highest  offices  in  the  State  ;  its  patron, 
who  could  secure  the  return  of  his  own  nominee,  was 
a  person  courted  by  Ministers,  and  could  look  forward 
to  peerages  and  other  honours.  The  small  boroughs 
became  the  prey  of  the  neighbouring  landowners, 
often,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the  willing  prey.  The  little 
bodies  of  voters  organised  themselves  for  corruption. 
They  appointed  agents  to  deal  with  offers,  to  receive 
the  price,  and  to  divide  it  among  the  conspirators. 
Or,  they  were  coy  ;  they  hung  back  until  the  close 
of  the  poll,  to  strike  a  harder  bargain.  If  they  were 
the  governing  body  of  the  town,  they  were  thought 
to  be  unusually  honest  if  they  offered  their  votes  to 
a  nobleman  who  would  undertake  to  act  as  the 
treasurer  of  the  municipality,  and  defray  its  deficit 
out  of  his  own  pocket.  The  Corporation  of  Oxford, 
caught  in  the  act  of  such  a  bargain  in  1768,  saw  its 
mayor  and  aldermen  committed  to  Newgate  by  a 
1  louse  of  Commons  which  was  indignant  at  the 
stupidity  which  had  allowed  the  discovery  to  be 
made  ;  but  the  worthy  magistrates,  nothing  daunted, 
continued  their  negotiations  with  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough and  Lord  Abingdon  from  the  comfortable 
security  of  the  gaol.  As  the  competitive  instinct 
grew,  patrons  became  more  and  more  sordid,  and 
openly  accepted  the  highest  bids.  The  Government, 
finding  it  easier  to  deal  with  a  few  patrons  than  to 
risk    the    unknown    chances    of    an    open    election, 


Photo  by] 


IWalker  &  CociereU. 


THE   GREAT   DUKE   OF   WELLINGTON. 
(1709-1852.) 

From  the  Bust  by  f.  Francis,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 


0 


66  REACT/ON    AND    REFORM 


defended  the  system  as  one  of  the  curious  but 
valuable  mysteries  of  the  British  Constitution.  It 
became  almost  an  axiom  that  the  business  of  the 
country  could  not  be  carried  on  in  any  other  way. 
The  Duke  of  Wellington,  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
Reform  Bill,  declared  it  to  be  his  solemn  conviction, 
that  the  legislature  and  the  system  of  representation 
possessed,  and  deserved ly  possessed,  the  full  and 
entire  confidence  of  the  country.  In  all  probability, 
more  than  half  the  members  of  Lord  Grey's  Cabinet, 
in  their  hearts,  disliked  Lord  John  Russell's  measure. 
It  was,  in  fact,  an  attack  on  property  ;  and  few  owners 
of  property  can  be  brought  to  see  that  their  own 
property  is  unjustifiable,  though  they  may  be  willing 
enough,  on  occasion,  to  confiscate  that  of  others.1 

Thus,  as  so  often  happens,  that  which  was  really 
the  most  potent,  though  not  the  most  conclusive- 
argument  in  the  great  struggle,  could  not  be  openly 
urged  by  the  more  respectable  of  the  party  which 
relied  on  it.  For  it  is  the  best  proof  of  the  unsound- 
ness of  the  argument  from  vested  interests,  that  its 
champions  were  ashamed  of  their  weapons.  The  old 
transcendental  method,  which  had  proved  so  alluring 
in  the  magic  setting  of  Burke's  eloquence,  now  fell 
somewhat  flat  ;  for  Wellington  and  Peel  were  not  the 
men  to  repeat  Burke's  dazzling  rhetoric.  When 
Burke  urged  that  the  constitution  was  a  great  living 


1  The  men  who  resisted  tin-  abolition  of  the  patronage  of  Gatton 
ami  Old  Sarum  in  i S3 1 .  had  cheerfull)  abolished  the  franchise  of 
thousands  of  Catholic  freeholders  in  [829.  Bui  perhaps  the  argument 
was,  thai  the  franchise  is  not  property,  though  the  patronage  <>i  the 
franchise  i.s. 


THE   REFORM  BILL  36/ 

organism,  palpitating  with  the  subtle  breath  of  ancient 
wisdom,  and  mysteriously  intertwined  in  all  its  parts, 
so  that  an  attack  on  one  meant  the  imminent  peril  of 
the  whole,  men,  ready  to  be  convinced,  felt  that  the 
teachings  of  philosophy  were  on  their  side.  When 
Wellington  and  Peel,  Sir  Robert  Inglis  and  Sir 
Charles  Wetherell,  expressed  their  conviction  that  the 
existing  scheme  represented  the  wisdom  of  ages  and 
the  perfection  of  human  reason,  their  hearers  had  the 
uneasy  conviction,  that  a  vulgar  dread  of  change  was 
the  real  inspiring  force  of  their  arguments.  The  old 
sophistical  plea  that  the  rotten  boroughs  had  brought 
to  light  such  shining  stars  as  the  elder  Pitt  and 
Burke,  Charles  James  Fox  and  George  Canning,  was 
repeated  with  wearisome  iteration  ;  but  the  crude  fact 
was,  that  this  phosphorescence  of  decay  had  long 
ceased  to  shine,  and  that  the  patrons  of  close  boroughs 
were  now  usually  actuated  in  their  nominations  by  the 
most  sordid  of  motives.  Had  the  great  borough- 
owners  really  exercised  their  power  as  a  sacred  trust, 
the  fate  of  the  Reform  Bill  might  have  been  very 
doubtful  ;  but  the  judgment  of  Heaven  was  upon 
them.  The  Opposition  soon  abandoned  all  general 
principles,  and  confined  themselves  to  arguments  of 
detail,  wearisome,  shallow  and  uninspiring,  destined  in 
the  long  run  to  fail. 

The  actual  history  of  the  measure  is  well  known, 
and  may  be  briefly  disposed  of.  The  Bill  was  intro- 
duced into  the  Commons  on  March  1,  183 1,  and,  on 
the  2 1st  of  the  same  month  the  second  reading-  was 
carried  by  the  majority  of  a  single  vote.  One  of  the 
most    remarkable    of   the   speeches   on    the   second 


368  REACTION   AND   REFORM 

reading  was  that  of  O'Connell,  now  duly  seated  for 
Clare,  who,  though  he  declared  Ireland  to  be  hardly 
treated  by  the  measure,  announced  his  intention  of 
lending  it  his  hearty  support.  The  narrow  majority 
on  the  second  reading  meant,  of  course,  certain  defeat 
in  Committee  ;  and,  on  April  22nd,  General  Gascoyne 
succeeded  in  carrying  an  amendment,  to  the  effect 
that  the  total  representation  accorded  to  England 
and  Wales  should  not  be  reduced.  The  point  was 
not  one  which  vitally  affected  the  measure,  and  it 
was,  in  fact,  afterwards  conceded  by  the  Ministry. 
But  it  was  clear  that  nothing  could  save  the  Bill  in 
the  existing  House  ;  and  the  Cabinet  determined  to 
follow  Pitt's  precedent  of  1784,  and  appeal  to  the 
constituencies.  They  acted  with  promptitude  and 
decision.  A  Cabinet  meeting  was  held  on  the  very 
day  of  Gascoyne's  victory  ;  and  the  Ministers,  with 
audacious  boldness,  ordered  preparations  for  a  dis- 
solution to  be  made  without  obtaining  the  King's 
consent.  After  a  somewhat  critical  interview  with 
his  Majesty,  Lords  Grey  and  Brougham  succeeded  in 
overcoming  the  royal  scruples  ;  and  Parliament,  which 
had  sat  for  less  than  six  months,  was  dissolved. 

The  result  of  the  elections  showed,  beyond  question, 
the  feeling  of  the  country.  An  overwhelming  majority 
of  Reformers  was  returned,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of 
the  borough  owners.  The  Cabinet  was  strengthened 
by  the  inclusion  of  Lord  John  Russell,  and  the  fiery 
and  brilliant  Stanley,  afterwards  the  great  Earl  of 
Derby.  A  new  measure,  almost  identical  with  that 
of  the  previous  session,  was  introduced  by  Lord  John, 
and,  on  the  7th  of  July,  the  second  reading  was  carried 


Photo  by]  {Walker  &  Cockerell. 

CHARLES,    EARL    GREY    (1764-1845). 

Portrait  by  Sir  Tlios.  Lawrence,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 


25 


3/0  REACTION   AND   REFORM 

by  the  substantial  majority  of  136.  Immediately 
afterwards,  the  Government  gave  a  somewhat  equi- 
vocal proof  of  its  intention  to  repress  the  forces  of 
disorder,  by  conducting  a  prosecution  against  Cobbett, 
one  of  the  fiercest  champions  of  Reform,  for  an 
article  which  had  appeared  in  the  Political  Register. 
Cobbett  escaped  through  the  disagreement  of  the 
jury  ;  but  it  was  well  known  that  only  two  of  its 
members  were  for  an  acquittal.  The  majority  for 
the  second  reading  was  large  ;  but  the  Opposition  were 
unbeaten,  and,  as  a  last  refuge,  now  looming  grimly 
in  the  near  future,  stood  the  House  of  Lords. 

The  fight  now  went  on  in  Committee.  Through 
wearisome  days  and  nights  the  disfranchisement  of 
each  rotten  borough  was  fiercely  disputed.  Advan- 
tage was  freely  taken  of  the  fact,  that  the  Government 
calculations  had  been  based  on  the  census  of  1821, 
though  the  census  of  [831  was  approaching  com- 
pletion. There  was  no  real  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  results  of  the  latter  returns  would  in  any  way 
weaken  the  case  for  Reform  ;  but  the  argument  served 
to  plead  for  delay.  At  last,  on  August  1 8th,  the 
Opposition  secured  a  memorable  victory.  The 
Marquis  of  Chandos  moved  to  add  to  the  pro- 
posed qualifications  the  ",£.50  occupation  clause." 
This  amendment  aimed,  of  course,  at  conferring 
the  count}-  franchise  on  mere  tenants-at-will,  or 
at  least,  on  tenants  from  year  to  year,  a  class 
peculiarly  liable,  from  the  uncertainty  of  their 
holdings,  to  vote  according  to  the  wishes  of  their 
lar.dlords.  The  clause  was  thoroughly  mischievous, 
not  only  for  its  effect  on  the  purity  of  elections,  but 


BILL    REJECTED   BY    THE   LORDS  37 1 

because  it  would  encourage  the  practice,  so  inimical 
to  good  agriculture,  of  taking  land  on  insecure  tenure. 
But  it  was  a  masterly  piece  of  tactics  ;  for  it  placed 
the  Government  which  opposed  it  in  the  fatal  position 
of  appearing  to  deprecate  an  extension  of  the  franchise. 
As  a  fact,  many  of  the  Government  supporters  voted 
for  the  amendment,  which  was  carried  by  a  majority 
of  81  ;  and  the  Ministers,  not  daring  to  appeal  to  the 
country  on  such  an  issue,  meekly  accepted  their 
defeat. 

An  agreed  amendment  in  the  borough  qualifica- 
tions substituted  the  £10  occupation  franchise  for  the 
original  ^10  rental  clause  ;  and  then  the  measure, 
after  a  few  more  days  of  wrangling,  was  read  a  third 
time  on  September  19th,  and  passed  the  House  of 
Commons  three  days  later. 

The  eyes  of  the  country  were  now  turned  anxiously 
upon  the  House  of  Lords.  Until  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  that  body,  despite  its  anomalous 
position,  had  never  been  unpopular  with  the  people 
at  large.  For  one  thing,  there  never  had  been  much 
jealousy  of  social  exclusiveness,  or  even  political  privi- 
lege, in  England.  Sensible  men  have  a  quiet  contempt 
for  such  things,  ambitious  men  hope  to  win  them, 
ignorant  and  vulgar  people  admire  them.  For 
another,  the  House  had  never  been,  until  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century, a  slave  to  one  party  in  the  State. 
From  the  Revolution  until  the  Ministry  of  Lord 
North,  it  had  been  very  independent  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day,  slightly  Whig  in  its  feelings,  not 
undignified  in  its  debates.  But  it  had  been  ruined 
by  Pitt,  who  had  crammed  it  with  obedient  tools  of 


372  HE  ACT  I  ON  AND   klil-okM 

the  Government,  men  promoted  for  their  wealth  or 
party  influence,  rather  than  for  their  character  or 
their  talents.  It  is  a  striking  fact,  that  the  fierce 
opposition  in  the  Lords  to  the  Reform  Bill  came, 
almost  entirely,  from  the  new  peerage  and  from  the 
bishops,  while  the  holders  of  ancient  titles  were 
warmly  in  its  favour.1  Unhappily,  the  new  peerage 
and  the  episcopal  bench  were  in  a  majority  ;  and, 
on  October  8th,  the  Bill  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of 
199  against   158. 

Two  questions  were  now  freely  discussed.  Would 
the  King  consent  to  create  new  peers  for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  the  Bill  ?  Would  the  Ministers  offer  a 
compromise  ? 

Both  these  questions  were  of  serious  moment.  The 
former  enthusiasm  of  the  King  for  Reform  was 
known  to  have  grown  weaker.  The  malign  influence 
of  Lord  Eldon  was  again  at  work  ;  and  he  was  backed, 
in  spite  of  personal  differences,  by  the  more  splendid 
talents  of  his  successor,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  beside 
whom  the  new  Lord  Chancellor,  Brougham,  with  all 
his  brilliance,  was  an  undignified  figure.  The 
precedents  for  the  creation  of  new  peers  were  few, 
though,  happily,  the  most  important  had  been 
furnished  by  the  Tories.2  All  the  leading  members 
of  the  Cabinet  were   either   peers    or  sons  of  peers  ; 

'  It  was  alleged  that,  on  the  division  of  October  8,  I  S3 1,  of  the 
representatives  of  peerages  created  before  1790,  108  voted  for  the  Bill 
and  only  four  against  it ;  while,  of  the  peers  of  later  creation,  150  voted 
against  the  measure  and  only  50  for  it.  I  do  not  pretend  to  have 
verified  the  figures,  which  rest  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  Molesworth. 

2  This  was,  of  course,  in  1712,  to  procure  a  majority  for  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht. 


REFORMERS   .17     WORK  373 

and  they  were  known  to  regard  with  great  repug- 
nance the  prospect  of  inflicting  a  serious  blow  upon 
the  independence  of  their  own  order. 

So  it  was  with  real  apprehension  that  the 
Reformers  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  "  compromise." 
For  it  was  felt  that  any  "  compromise  "  which  would 
soothe  the  feelings  of  the  Opposition  would  be 
fatal  to  the  chances  of  a  substantial  measure  ; 
while  the  circumstances  of  the  moment  pointed 
unmistakably  in  that  direction.  Disturbances  in 
the  country  gave  the  opponents  of  Reform  only 
too  good  an  excuse  for  playing  upon  the  fears  of  the 
propertied  classes.  A  combination  between  the 
Whig  section  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  more  moderate 
Tories  might  have  proved  fatal  to  the  Ministry  and 
the  Bill.  But  the  Times  was  fervently,  even  scur- 
rilously,  in  favour  of  Reform  ;  and  the  great  majority 
of  the  Press  followed  suit.  The  Reformers  outside 
Parliament  worked  night  and  day  to  convince  the 
Ministers  of  the  unabated  confidence  of  the  country. 
It  was  pointed  out,  with  perfect  truth,  that  the  one 
step  which  produced  an  immediate  effect  in  allaying 
disturbances,  was  an  announcement  by  Ministers  of 
theirunalterabledetermination  to  carry  their  measure ; 
while  any  sign  of  weakness  was  a  signal  for  out- 
breaks. The  Birmingham  Political  Union  organised 
gigantic  meetings.  Other  great  towns  followed  suit, 
and  the  different  local  societies  soon  became  the 
National  Political  Union,  with  its  headquarters  in 
London,  largely  directed  by  Place,  who,  with 
indomitable  energy  and  a  real  genius  for  organi- 
sation, fought  the  advocates  of  "  compromise  "  on  the 


374  REACTION  AND   REFORM 

one  hand,  and  the  "  Rotundanists," *  who  advocated 
extreme  socialistic  measures,  on  the  other.  Encour- 
aged bythese  demonstrations,  the  Cabinet  determined, 
after  a  short  prorogation,  to  re-introduce  the  measure. 

On  December  12,  1831,  Lord  John  Russell 
accordingly  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons 
the  third  Reform  Hill.  In  order  to  soothe  the 
Opposition,  a  few  of  the  minor  amendments,  previously 
put  forward  by  them,  were  embodied  in  the  Hill  ; 
but  its  essential  character  was  unaltered,  and,  indeed, 
the  addition  of  a  few  seats  to  the  populous  towns 
may  be  regarded  as  a  strengthening  of  its  principles. 
There  was  little  debate  this  time  ;  and  the  great 
majority  of  two  to  one,  by  which  it  passed  the  second 
reading,  is  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  House  of 
Commons  at  least  did  not  believe  in  the  vaunted 
"reaction."  In  the  Lords  it  soon  became  evident 
that  tactics  were  to  be  changed.  The  Bill  actually 
passed  the  second  reading  on  April  14,  ICS32,  by 
the  narrow  majority  of  nine.  But  a  specious  amend- 
ment by  Lord  Lyndhurst,  to  alter  the  course  of 
discussion,  was  accepted  as  a  challenge  by  the 
Ministry,  now  confident  of  success  ;  and,  on  the  accep- 
tance of  the  amendment  by  the  House,  the  Cabinet 
placed  its  resignation  in  the  hands  of  the  King. 

Now  occurred  the  last  and  most  dangerous  crisis 
of  the  whole  process.  The  King,  having  accepted 
the  resignation  of  his  Ministers,  consulted  Lord 
Lyndhurst,  who  advised  him  to  send  for  the  Duke 
of  Wellington.      The    Duke,   though    he   expressed 

1  So    called    from    the    fact  that  they  met   in  a  building  known   as 
*'  The  Rotunda,'-  near  Blackfrjars  in  London. 


PASSING    OF    THE    BILL  375 

himself  willing  to  assume  office  if  no  more  suitable 
leader  could  be  found,  suggested  Peel.  But  Sir 
Robert,  who  was  at  the  time  personally  unpopular 
in  the  country,  as  well  as  with  his  own  party,1  could 
not  face  the  situation  ;  and,  no  other  person  being 
possible,  the  Duke  undertook  the  heroic  task  of 
forming  a  Ministry. 

The  step  was  accepted  as  a  declaration  of  war  by 
tiie  country.  Place  and  his  friends  initiated  a 
masterly  move  by  threatening  a  run  on  the  banks, 
and  huge  placards,  containing  only  the  words — 
"  To  Stop  the  Duke, 
Go  for  Gold," 
appeared,  as  by  magic,  all  over  the  country.  The 
effect  was  instantaneous.  Place's  more  cautious 
friends  were  horrified  ;  but  the  event  proved  Place's 
superior  sagacity.  The  commercial  classes,  instead 
of  being  offended  by  the  advice,  acted  upon  it.  This 
was  clear  proof  that  the  agitation  for  Reform  was  not 
the  work  of  the  rabble.  Even  the  bankers  sympa- 
thised with  the  movement.  The  stocks  fell  rapidly. 
At  last  the  iron  courage  of  the  Duke  gave  way.  The 
King  gave  a  written  promise  to  Lord  Grey  to  create 
as  many  peers  as  should  be  necessary  to  secure  the 
passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  ;  and  the  opposition  in 
the  Lords  was  doomed.  It  had  been  foolish  from 
the  first,  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  promoters ;  for 
it  had  set  the  valuable  precedent,  that  the  constitution 
of  each   House   is   as   much  a  matter   for   the  other 

1  He  was,  of  course,  unpopular  with  his  own  party  for  his  surrender 
on  Catholic  Emancipation.  But  his  new  police  force  (the  "Peelers") 
rendered  him  also  unpopular  with  the  masses. 


376  REACTION   AXD   REFORM 

as  for  itself.  If  the  Lords  may  object  to  a  reform 
of  the  Commons,  desired  by  the  Commons  them- 
selves, the  Commons  may  insist  on  a  reform  of  the 
Lords,  though  it  be  opposed  by  the  Lords  them- 
selves. 

The  passing'  of  the  Reform  Hill,  which  speedily 
followed  the  return  of  the  Grey  Cabinet  to  office, 
marks  the  end  of  the  old  order  and  the  commence- 
ment of  the  new.  The  Reformed  Parliament  totally 
defeated  all  the  malicious  prophecies  of  those  who 
alleged,  that  its  meeting  would  be  the  signal  for  an 
outbreak  of  violent  revolution.  But  it  did  set  about 
the  much-needed  overhauling  of  the  social  and 
political  fabric  with  skill  and  zeal  ;  and  the  changes 
which  took  place  between  1832  and  1840  made 
England  almost  unrecognisable  by  the  survivors  of 
the  older  system.  Slavery  was  abolished  throughout 
the  Empire  ;  the  grievances  of  the  new  industrial 
workers  were  taken  in  hand  ;  the  Poor  Law  system 
was  re-organised  ;  the  Established  Church  of  England 
was  warned  by  the  creation  of  the  Ecclesiastical 
Commission  to  set  its  house  in  order  ;  and  the 
monstrous  endowments  of  the  Protestant  Establish- 
ment in  Ireland  were  pared  down.  The  corrupt 
municipal  system  of  local  government  was  swept 
away  ;  the  grievances  of  tithe  collection  were 
abolished  ;  the  newspaper  stamp  duty  was  reduced  t<> 
a  minimum  ;  and  popular  education  definitely,  though 
gradually,  acquired  recognition  as  an  object  of  State 
care.  Most  of  these  reforms  were  effected  before  the 
accession  of  Queen  Victoria,  whose  reign  of  almost 
unbroken  peace  and  progress,  whose  popularity  and 


' 

SPpp-'"^! 

■ 

K^-fl 

A 

m  Bi^i 

K^-^"   ^4B 

SP'^i 

WILLIAM    VV1LBEKFORCE,    M.P. 
(1759-1833.) 

Portrait  by  J.  Rising. 


378  REACT/0  V      /\7>    REFORM 

whose  strength,  were  due  largely  to  the  almost  ideal 
virtues  of  her  own  character,  but  largely  also  to  the 
heroic  efforts  of  those  who  had,  in  the  last  few  years 
before  her  accession,  broken  down  the  barriers  of 
social  and  political  prejudice,  without  letting  in  the 
flood  waters  of  revolution. 


XII 


HISTORY   AND   CRITICISM 


It  remains  now  only  to  summarise  the  causes 
which  have  been  at  work  to  produce  that  curious 
development  of  British  politics  whose  progress  we 
have  endeavoured  to  trace,  and  to  point  out  a  few 
of  the  chief  consequences  which  have  resulted  from 
the  acceptance  of  the  system. 

In  seeking  for  the  general  causes  which  have 
led  to  a  particular  historical  development,  we  look, 
naturally,  in  two  directions.  On  the  one  hand,  we 
try  to  detect  the  dominant  convictions,  aspirations, 
and  prejudices  which  have  swayed  the  actors  in  the 
drama ;  on  the  other,  we  study  to  seize  those  features 
of  the  environment  which  have  helped  or  hindered 
these  personal  forces.  History  written  exclusively 
from  the  former  standpoint  is  literary  history;  his- 
tory written  from  the  latter  is  scientific  history. 
To  be  complete,  history  should  be  both  literary 
and  scientific. 

It  may  be  assumed,  with  tolerable  safety,  that  the 
force    behind    the    political    movement  of    the    later 

379 


3-SO  Iff  STORY  AND    CRITICISM 

seventeenth  century,  was  no  abstract  passion  for 
republicanism.  If  that  passion  had  ever  been  a 
powerful  factor  in  English  politics,  it  had  been 
thoroughly  discredited  by  the  experience  of  the 
Commonwealth  ;  and,  indeed,  the  more  progressive 
statesmen  of  the  period  had  to  reckon,  not  on  popular 
enthusiasm  for  liberal  ideas,  but  on  a  steady  popular 
opposition  to  anything  that  savoured  of  reform.  The 
nation  was,  in  fact,  just  in  one  of  those  moods  of 
reaction,  in  which  it  was  prepared  to  uphold  and 
cherish  every  abuse  which  could  be  invested  with 
the  halo  of  antiquity.  Even  Hobbes'  speculations, 
daring  as  they  seemed  to  his  contemporaries,  led 
their  author  into  championship  of  the  ancient  order. 
And,  though  Eocke's  great  influence  ultimately  went 
the  other  way,  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  the  abso- 
lute and  arbitrary  exercise  of  authority,  against  which 
he  so  nobly  protests,  was  not,  in  his  own  mind,  as 
likely  to  be  asserted  by  a  republican  assembly  as  by 
a  monarch.1 

But,  if  there  was  no  abstract  passion  for  re- 
publicanism, still  less  for  social  equality,  in  the 
statesmen  of  the  late  seventeenth  century,  there 
grew  up  in  their  minds  a  fairly  strong  conviction 
of  the  practical  dangers  of  a.  Jure  divino  monarchy. 
The  strongly  legal  cast  of  mind  which  the  more 
honest  among  them  had  inherited  from  the  older 
heroes  of  the  Parliamentary  struggle — from  Coke, 
Eliot,  Pym,  Selden,  St.  John,  and  Maynard — caused 
them  to  cling  tenaciously  to  the  constitutional  side 

1  See  especially  Tivo  Treatises  of  Civil  Government,  Bk.  II.  cap.  xi. 
(Of  the  Extent  of  the  Legislative  Power.) 


D/STATST   Of-'  Ati  SO  LUTE   MONARCHY-  38  I 


J< 


of  the  English  kingship.  The  Conservative  Oppo- 
sition which  had  begun  the  Civil  War,  and  which 
afterwards  severed  itself  from  the  more  extreme 
spirits  who  carried  it  to  a  triumphant  conclusion, 
revived  with  the  Restoration.  All  serious  statesmen 
recognised  the  legal  checks  on  the  prerogative  im- 
posed by  s*uch  venerated  monuments  of  antiquity  as 
Magna  Carta,  the  Confirmatio  Cartarum,  the  Statute 
of  Tallage,  and  the  first  Treason  Act  of  Edward  VI. ; 
and  they  were  not  prepared  to  give  up  even  more 
modern  safeguards,  such  as  the  Petition  of  Right  and 
the  Triennial  Act.  They  were  not  quite  clear  how 
these  checks  were  to  be  enforced  against  a  king  who 
desired  to  defy  them  ;  for,  in  the  flush  of  victorious 
royalism,  all  men,  cleric  and  lay,  held  fast  to  the 
sacredness  of  the  royal  person.  But  it  may  safely 
be  said  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  extreme 
High  Church  and  Tory  party,  no  considerable  body 
of  Englishmen  was  prepared,  even  in  the  years 
immediately  following  the  Restoration,  to  profess 
adhesion  to  the  doctrine  of  an  absolute  monarchy. 
Charles  II.  was  far  too  shrewd  a  man  to  put  the 
patience  of  his  loyal  subjects  to  a  violent  test.  As 
has  been'  said,  for  the  first  few  years  he  walked  warily  ; 
and,  even,  when  increasing  confidence  begat  reck- 
lessness, he  ventured  no  open  defiance  of  the  law. 
Unhappily,  it  soon  became  clear  that  there  was,  even 
within  legal  bounds,  abundant  scope  for  mischief.  If 
the  King  chose  to  squander  in  idle  extravagance 
the  money  voted  by  Parliament  for  carrying  on  the 
business  of  the  nation,  he  could  not  be  accused  of 
breaking    the    law.     Parliament    might    talk    about 


382  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

refusing  supplies  ;  but  such  u  course,  though  not  with- 
out precedent,  would  really  have  harmed  the  nation 
more  than  the   King.     For  out   of  the  large  heredi- 
tary revenues  granted  at  the  Restoration,  the  King- 
could  supply  his  personal  needs.     The  real  sufferer> 
by  the  refusal  of  supplies  would  have  been  the  public 
officials  and  the  navy.     If  the  King  chose  to  fill  the 
offices  of  State  with  worthless  parasites,  no  one  could 
allege  that  he  acted  beyond  his  legal  powers  ;  for  all 
public  offices  were  in  his  gift.     If,  grown  yet  more 
selfish  and  callous,  he  chose  to  sell  the  nation's  honour 
to  the    French   Court,  and    to   sign    a  treaty  which 
delivered   up  the  nation's  allies  to  the  vengeance  of 
their  foes,  there  was  no  legal  redress  ;  for  the  treaty- 
making   power  was,  unquestionably,  by  the  Law  of 
the  Constitution,  vested  in  the  Crown.     During  the 
later  years  of  Charles'    reign,  the   conviction  slowly 
forced  itself  upon  the  reluctant  minds,  even  of  ardent 
royalists,  that  the  power  for  evil  lodged  in  the  hands 
of    a    vicious    and    heartless     king    was    abundantly 
great.     Men    so   different   in    position   and   character 
as  Clarendon,  Guildford,  Temple,  and  Pepys,  saw  the 
fact,  and  lamented  it ;  and  yet  they  shrank,  as  did  all 
but  the  scattered  remnants  of  the  Puritan  part}-,  from 
anything   that  might  recall    the  days  of  the   Long 
Parliament.     There  seemed  to  be  no  way  out  of  the 
difficulty. 

But  a  man's  wits  are  often  sharpened  by  the 
pressure  of  personal  danger  ;  and  it  has  more  than 
once  happened,  that  a  statesman  who  has  failed 
to  avoid  an  awkward  situation,  has  shown  much 
dexterity  in  extricating  himself  from  it.     The  loyal 


OFFICIAL   RESPONSIBILITY  X% 


5 


maxim-  -the  King  can  do  no  wrong — had  a  sound 
complement,  that  the  royal  commands  are  no  excuse 
for  wrongdoing.  And  so  the  official  who  alleged,  as 
excuse  for  misbehaviour,  the  personal  orders  of  the 
king,  found  himself  met  by  the  polite  fiction  which 
declined  to  credit  the  existence  of  such  orders — with 
the  logical  consequence,  that  he  was  held  to  have 
been  the  author  of  his  own  misdeeds.  It  had  never 
been  necessary  for  the  success  of  an  impeachment,  to 
prove  actual  illegality  on  the  part  of  the  accused.  It 
was  sufficient  that  his  conduct  was  disapproved  by 
the  highest  tribunal  in  the  land,  whose  judgment  had 
been  invoked  by  the  representatives  of  the  people. 
The  impeachment  of  Danby  showed  that  this  sound 
rule  of  law  had  survived  the  storm  of  Restoration 
loyalty.  And,  as  it  became  lamentably  clear  that, 
despite  his  easy  good  nature,  Charles  was  not  the 
man  to  risk  a  hair  in  defence  of  the  servant  whom 
he  had  exposed  to  popular  vengeance,  men  with 
estates  and  character  to  lose  began  to  shrink  from 
the  dangerous  honour  of  public  office.  The  fate  of 
Strafford  stood  as  a  warning  beacon  in  the  path, 
of  ambitious  men  ;  for  no  one  could  for  a  moment 
imagine  that  Charles  would  be  more  heroic  than 
his  father.  This  may  well  have  been  one  reason 
why  mere  adventurers  like  Bennet,  Will.  Coventry, 
Berkeley,  and  Downing,  found  it  easy  to  secure  high 
office,  and  still  more  easy  to  lose  it. 

But  if,  in  one  way,  the  prospect  of  holding  high 
office  in  the  State  thus  became  less  attractive  to 
men  of  position,  in  another  its  allurements  became 
more  intense.     For  Charles  II.  was  the  first  English 


384  HISTORY  AND   CRITIC  IS Ar 

monarch  since  the  battle  of  Bosworth  who  was  pre- 
pared to  play  the  part  of  rot  faineant :  to  leave  the 
realities  of  power  in  the  hands  of  his  Ministers,  whilst 
contenting  himself  with  the  luxuries  of  royalty.  His 
grandfather,  James,  had  been  hoodwinked,  no  doubt, 
by  his  favourites.  But  Charles,  who  could  not  be 
hoodwinked,  was  too  idle  to  care  for  power,  and 
gladly  transferred  the  cares  of  State  to  more  willing 
shoulders.  It  was  a  superb  opportunity  for  men  of 
real  ambition  ;  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at 
that  such  men  only  waited  until  they  could  discover 
M>ine  bulwark,  more  trustworthy  than  royal  favour, 
against  the  storms  of  Fate,  before  plunging  once 
more  into  the  race  for  power. 

This  bulwark  they  found  in  political  connection.  No 
Minister  could  stand  alone  against  the  hostile  criticism 
of  disappointed  rivals.  But  it  might  well  be  that,  by 
a  combination  of  interests,  a  group  of  Ministers  might 
defy  attack,  at  least  an  attack  based  on  no  very  stable 
grounds.  This  was  really  a  novel  feature  in  the 
politics  of  the  later  seventeenth  century.  The  strong 
hand  of  the  Tudor  monarchy  had  bound  each  in- 
dividual Minister  closely  to  the  service  of  the  Crown; 
but  it  had  not  tolerated  concerted  action  amongst 
Ministers.  We  can  imagine  the  wrath  with  which 
Henry  VIII.  or  Elizabeth  would  have  heard  of  secret 
meetings  of  the  royal  officials.  Strong  political  asso- 
ciation had  appeared  among  the  heroes  of  the  Long 
Parliament;  but  they  were  in  opposition,  not  in  office. 
That  the  defection  of  Strafford  should  have  aroused 
deep  feelings  of  resentment,  may  be  regarded  as  a 
sign    of  change,  a  change  which  was   gradually  to 


THE  NEW   TENDENCY  385 

transform  the  character  of  English  politics.  It 
was  in  this  respect  that  the  Cabal  of  1667  antici- 
pated a  modern  Cabinet ;  and  the  disfavour  with 
which  the  experiment  was  regarded  is  proof  of  the 
novelty  of  the  situation.  Ill-assorted  as  were  the 
members  of  that  notorious  body,  and  devoid  of 
principle,  it  was  recognised  that  they,  as  well  as 
their  more  respectable  successors,  the  "Junto"  of 
1697,  depended  for  their  safety,  not  merely  on  the 
favour  of  the  Crown,  but  on  their  mutual  good  offices 
and  interests.  And  it  is  clear,  that  the  new  device 
was  looked  upon  as  an  unwarranted  encroachment 
on  the  prerogative. 

At  the  critical  moment,  however,  the  new  tendency 
was  powerfully  stimulated  by  events.  Charles  II. 
had,  on  the  whole,  kept  within  the  law.  His 
successor  defied  it ;  and  defied  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
arouse  the  hostility,  both  of  the  nation  and  the 
nation's  leaders.  The  passionate  loyalty  of  the  High 
Church  party  gave  way  before  James'  attempt  to 
Romanise  the  English  Church.  It  became  clear  that 
something  more  was  necessary  than  the  refusal  of 
supplies,  or  the  impeachment  of  Ministers.  The 
prerogative  had  to  be  shorn  of  its  power  for  evil  ; 
the  King  himself  had  to  be  removed.  The  former 
proposition  involved  the  latter ;  for  James  was  not 
the  man  to  place  fetters  on  his  own  limbs. 

But  the  task  involved  extreme  danger ;  for,  of 
course,  it  entailed  the  commission  of  that  high  crime, 
which  ceases  only  to  be  a  crime  when  it  is  successful. 
No  one  could  doubt,  that  failure  would  entail  the  last 
penalty   of  the   law,  even  if  it  did  not  once   more 

26 


386  111 STORY   AND   CRITICISM 

involve  the  nation  in  civil  strife.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  the  actors  in  the  drama  took  anxious  counsel 
together.  The  famous  letter  to  William  was  much 
more  than  an  invitation  to  the  Prince  of  Orange. 
It  was  a  guarantee  of  the  mutual  loyalty  of  the 
subscribers.  Macaulay,  with  his  usual  dramatic 
force,  has  told  us  how  Nottingham,  who  at  first  gave 
his  adhesion  to  the  invitation,  afterwards  felt  bound 
by  conscientious  scruples  to  withdraw  it.  But  the 
Tory  leader  realised  fully  the  effect  which  his  with- 
drawal was  likely  to  produce  upon  his  former 
associates  ;  and,  probably  to  protect  himself  against 
the  danger  of  assassination,  he  voluntarily  offered  his 
life  as  a  pledge  of  his  secrecy.  It  is  creditable  alike 
to  the  characters  of  Nottingham  and  the  Whig 
leaders,  that  no  precautions  were  taken  to  ensure  the 
Karl's  silence. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  suggest,  that  the  exciting 
and  anxious  months,  which  virtually  decided  the 
form  of  the  Revolution,  also  gave  a  powerful  stimulus 
to  the  growth  of  political  connection.  It  is  true  that 
the  invitation  to  William  was  signed  by  Tories  as 
well  as  by  Whigs — by  Compton  and  Danby,  as  well 
as  by  Devonshire  and  Shrewsbury.  But,  in  the 
discussions  which  followed  the  landing  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange,  it  was  clear  that  the  Tories  already  half 
repented  of  their  action.  At  any  rate,  it  is  certain 
that  their  efforts  were  directed  mainly  towards 
restricting  the  change  to  the  narrowest  possible 
limits  ;  whilst  their  opponents,  the  Whigs,  were  bent 
on  effecting  a  substantial  alteration  in  the  Consti- 
tution.    And,  as  time  went  on,  it  became  more  and 


WHIG   ORGANISATION  387 

more  evident  that,  given  ordinary  prudence  on  the 
part  of  the  exiled  House,  the  Tories  were  fully  pre- 
pared to  retrace  their  steps.  Thus,  first  by  the 
labour  of  their  efforts  to  effect  a  firm  settlement,  and 
afterwards,  from  a  growing  sense  of  danger,  the 
Whig  leaders  drew  closer  together,  until  at  last  they 
formed  a  united  group,  with  much  of  the  cohesion 
which  marks  a  modern  Ministry.  No  doubt  they  had 
their  private  quarrels  :  but,  to  the  outside  world,  they 
presented  an  unbroken  front. 

It  could  not,  however,  escape  their  sagacity,  that  a 
small  group  of  great  noblemen  and  officials,  unable 
to  count  on  the  special  favour  of  the  Crown,  and  not 
backed  by  any  great  following  in  the  country, 
occupied,  in  spite  of  the  talents  of  its  members,  a 
somewhat  insecure  position.  The  Tory  organisation 
lay  ready  to  hand,  in  the  parochial  machinery  of  that 
institution  which  then  exercised  such  a  powerful 
influence  in  the  country,  the  Established  Church. 
The  Whig  leaders  determined  to  organise  a  corre- 
sponding machinery,  by  collecting  together  all  those 
elements  which,  by  nature  or  circumstances,  seemed 
likely  to  stand  firmly  in  favour  of  the  Revolution 
settlement.  The  nucleus  lay,  of  course,  in  the 
survivors  of  the  old  Exclusionist  party,  the  men  who 
had  supported  the  Bill  which,  in  1679,  had  threatened 
to  shut  out  James  from  the  succession  to  the  throne. 
These  men  could  urge,  with  great  show  of  reason, 
that,  if  their  plan  had  been  adopted,  all  the  troubles 
of  James' reign  would  have  been  avoided.  Much  of 
their  strength  lay,  no  doubt,  in  the  dissenting  con- 
gregations which,  even  under  the  iron  system  of  the 


388  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

Restoration,  had  caused  no  little  anxiety  to  the 
supporters  of  exclusive  orthodoxy.  The  dissenters 
had  received  substantial  benefits  from  the  Revolution  ; 
for  the  Toleration  Act  of  1689  had  been  a  real 
advance  towards  religious  liberty,  and,  though  it  had 
actually  been  introduced  by  the  Tory  Nottingham* 
those  who  gained  by  it  some  degree  of  freedom  of 
worship  felt  that  they  owed  their  liberty  to  the  Whig 
leaders,  who  had  made  the  Revolution  an  accom- 
plished fact.  The  Whig  leaders  had  also  been 
mainly  instrumental  in  restoring  to  the  chartered 
towns  those  rights  of  self-government  of  which  they 
had  been  shamelessly  deprived  by  the  Ministers  of 
Charles  and  James  ;  and,  though  they  had  deservedly 
failed  in  their  vindictive  attempt  to  proscribe  the 
men  who  had  acquiesced  in  the  high-handed  pro- 
ceedings of  Jeffreys  and  his  colleagues,  the  changes 
of  1690  must  have  greatly  increased  the  Whig 
influence  in  the  boroughs.  The  establishment,  in 
1694,  of  the  Bank  of  England,  created  a  permanent 
stronghold  of  Whiggism  in  the  heart  of  the  great 
city  of  London  ;  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Bank  of 
England  was  bound  up  with  the  existence  of  the 
National  Debt,  and  few  of  the  fund-holders  doubted, 
that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  a  Jacobite  Restoration 
would  be  to  repudiate  a  liability  which  had  been 
incurred  for  the  express  purpose  of  maintaining 
William  on  the  throne.  Finally,  to  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  of  the  Whig  leaders,  Thomas  Wharton, 
is  attributed  the  foundation  of  that  elaborate  system 
of  canvassing,  which  has,  ever  since  the  close  of 
the    seventeenth   century,    been    one    of  the    most 


THE   GREAT    WHIG   PARTY  389 

conspicuous      features     of     the     English     political 
system. 

Thus  was  organised,  during  the  first  few  years  of 
William's  reign,  that  great  Whig  party  which,  on  the 
death  of  Anne,  assumed  control  of  the  destinies  of 
England,  and  held  it  for  half  a  century.  At  first 
mainly  an  organisation  for  defence,  it  soon  became, 
from  the  force  of  circumstances,  an  active  power  in 
the  conduct  of  affairs.  The  foreign  ruler  who 
succeeded,  in  1714,  to  the  throne  of  Great  Britain, 
found  in  it  the  one  possibility  of  safety.  The  Tories 
who  were  loyal  to  the  Act  of  Settlement  were  unable 
to  offer  the  King  any  such  guarantee;  for  George, 
though  he  knew  little  of  English  affairs,  knew  at 
least  that  they  could  not  hold  their  Jacobite  followers 
down,  that  they  were,  in  fact,  not  an  organised 
party,  but  simply  a  small  handful  of  prudent  men 
trying  to  keep  an  organised  party  in  check.  But  the 
Whigs,  firm  in  discipline,  and  necessarily  faithful  to  a 
settlement  which  alone  saved  them  from  impeach- 
ment as  traitors,  were  safe,  if  somewhat  exacting, 
protectors.  An  able  and  active  ruler,  such  as 
William  had  been,  would  have  used  the  Whig 
organisation  without  submitting  to  it.  George  I. 
was  shrewd  enough  to  see  where  his  safety  lay,  but 
not  sufficiently  shrewd  or  energetic  to  control  the 
situation.  The  whole  responsibility  of  defending  the 
throne  against  Jacobite  plots  fell  upon  the  Whig 
leaders ;  and  to  Townshend,  and  Stanhope,  and 
Walpole,  it  seemed  not  unfair,  that  those  who  took 
the  risk  should  exercise  the  power.  Thus  the  real 
government  of  the  country  passed,  in  the  early  years 


390  HISTORY  AND    CRITICISM 

of  the  seventeenth  century,  from  the  hands  of  the 
Crown  into  the  hands  of  the  Cabinet.  It  is  tolerably- 
clear  that  this  arrangement  was,  for  some  time, 
looked  upon  as  merely  a  temporary  expedient.  We 
have  seen,  for  example,  how  George  II.,  on  his 
accession,  tried  to  break  through  it.  But  the  speedy 
failure  of  the  attempt  revealed  the  strength  which 
the  new  system  had  attained,  during  a  few  brief  years 
of  experiment. 

At  this  point  there  was  a  very  real  danger,  that  the 
government  of  England  might  take  the  form  of  a 
permanent  bureaucracy.  The  disintegration  of  the 
Tory  party,  the  somewhat  unscrupulous  use  of  his 
power  by  Walpole,  the  pressing  fear  of  a  Jacobite 
reaction,  which  justified,  and  indeed  compelled  a 
rigid  discipline  among  the  Whigs,  tended  to  convert 
the  Cabinet  into  a  close  body  of  officials,  recruited 
virtually  by  co-optation,  as  casual  vacancies  occurred. 
So  long  as  the  Ministers  succeeded  in  preventing  the 
King  from  exercising  his  power  of  dismissal,  there 
was  no  authority  which  could  legally  alter  the  com- 
position of  the  Cabinet  ;  and  it  seemed  possible,  that 
the  legal  power  which  the  King  undoubtedly 
possessed  would,  in  course  of  time,  become  a  mere 
formality,  like  the  equally  legal  power  of  refusing 
assent  to  Bills  passed  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

But  from  this  possibility  England  was  saved,  partly 
by  the  provisions  of  existing  law,  partly  by  sound 
constitutional  traditions,  still  more  by  that  wholesome 
interest  in  public  affairs,and  practical  genius  for  politics, 
which  have  characterised  the  English  race  from  early 
times.     With  a  recent  Triennial  Act  upon  the  statute- 


The  power  of  the  hocse  of  Commons.     39 1 

book,  it  was  impossible  for  the  Ministry  to  stifle  Parlia- 
ment, as  the  States-General  had  been  stifled  in  France. 
The  maxim — "  No  taxation  without  representation  " 
— forbade  any  attempt,  however  indirect,  to  raise 
money  without  frequent  recurrence  to  the  House  of 
Commons  ;  and  it  was,  happily,  quite  impossible  to 
carry  on  the  government  without  taxation.  Finally, 
the  British  Parliament  in  the  eighteenth  century  was 
the  last  body  in  the  world  to  allow  itself  to  become 
a  mere  formality,  assembled  for  the  purpose  of 
registering  Ministerial  decrees. 

No  sooner,  therefore,  had  the  Cabinet  established 
its  power  against  the  Crown,  than  it  had  to  face  the 
criticism  of  a  Parliament  which,  having  long  been 
accustomed  to  criticise  kings,  was  not  in  the  least 
likely  to  be  bashful  in  pointing  out  the  faults  of 
Ministers.  In  fact,  the  critical  functions  of  Parlia- 
ment were  now  to  be  exercised  with  a  severity  and 
intensity  unknown  before.  For  the  prominent 
member  who,  in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  could  not  help  feeling  that  his  activities 
were  not  unlikely  to  lead  him  to  the  King's  Bench 
prison  or  the  pillory,  was  now  replaced  by  the  pro- 
minent member  who  felt,  that  if  he  made  himself 
sufficiently  formidable,  he  might  reasonably  hope  to 
gain  lucrative  office  under  the  Crown.  In  spite  of 
the  temporary  set-back  of  the  Restoration,  Parlia- 
ment, and  especially  the  House  of  Commons,  had 
been  steadily  growing  in  power  during  the  whole  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  now  felt  itself  to  be  the 
ultimate  arbiter  of  the  nation's  destinies. 

But  the  situation  was  somewhat  peculiar ;  or,  at 


392  fi/STORY  AND   CRITICISM 

least,  it  was  novel.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  just  a  few 
years  before  the  accession  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty, 
an  important  change  in  the  law  had  excluded  all 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  with  a  few 
important  exceptions,  from  the  holding"  of  public 
office  ;  or  rather,  had  prevented  the  creation  of  new 
offices  for  the  benefit  of  members  of  the  Commons' 
House.  Thus  a  very  natural  and  obvious  means  of 
securing  harmony  between  the  Cabinet  and  the 
representatives  of  the  people  was  seriously  cir- 
cumscribed. And  the  same  feeling  which  had 
prompted  the  change  for  some  time  continued  to 
hamper  the  growth  of  the  new  system.  No  one  can 
read  the  debates  which  took  place  during  the  early 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  without  realising, 
that  the  more  independent  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons  regarded  the  holder  of  office  as,  primd 
facie,  a  suspicious  person.  The  feeling  was  partly 
due  to  the  traditions  of  hostility7  between  Crown  and 
Parliament  which  had  survived  from  the  Civil  War, 
partly,  it  is  to  be  feared,  to  the  more  recent  memories 
of  the  Restoration  period.  It  was  necessary,  if  the 
Ministry  was  to  secure  the  confidence  of  the  nation, 
that  it  should  be  supported  in  Parliament  by  men 
who  were  not  ostensibly  biassed  in  their  views  by  the 
possession  of  office.  Had  parties  been  at  all  evenly 
balanced,  it  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  possible  to 
appeal,  with  some  confidence,  to  party  principles. 
But  it  must  again  be  remembered  that  the  Tories, 
though  unquestionably  a  numerous  body,  were 
regarded,  during  the  reigns  of  George  I.  and 
George  II.,  as  outside  the  pale  of  practical  politics. 


THE  POLICY  OF  BRIBERY  393 

Until  the  taint  of  Jacobitism  had  been  finally  purged 
from  their  ranks,  all  those  sober  citizens  who  looked 
upon   the  return  of  the  Stuarts  as  the  worst  of  all 
possible    calamities,    steadily    supported    the    Whigs, 
and  were  inclined  to  wink  very  hard  at  any  methods, 
however  objectionable,  which  secured  them  in  office. 
This  fact  is  the  one  justification  for  the  plan  which, 
despite    all     attempts    at    whitewashing,    must    un- 
doubtedly   be  regarded   as   the    deliberate    policy  of 
Walpole    and    his    colleagues.      Walpole    felt   that, 
though  the  great  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
who  called  themselves  Whigs,  could  always  be  relied 
upon   to  vote   straight  when  the    question   was    one 
which  really  menaced  the  safety  of  the  throne,  they 
could  not  be  trusted,  on  motives  of  pure  patriotism, 
not  to  attempt  combinations  with  a  view  of  seizing 
office   for  themselves.     We  are    not   called   upon  to 
decide  the  delicate  question  whether,  in  resorting  to 
doubtful    means    to    defeat    this   tendency,    Walpole 
thought  more  of  the  danger  to  the  country  or  of  the 
danger  to  his  own   ascendency.     In  all   probability, 
most  successful  politicians  feel  that  the  prosperity  of 
the  country  is  intimately  bound  up  with   their   own 
retention  in  office.     And  this  at  least  may  be  said, 
that  Walpole  had  more  excuse  than  most  Ministers 
for  such  a  thought.     At  any  rate,  it  is  not  impossible, 
not  even  improbable,  that  a  successful  revolt  in  the 
Ministerial  ranks  would  have  given  the  Jacobites  that 
opportunity  for  which,  until  the  disastrous  failure  of 
the  Young  Pretender  in   1745,  they  never  ceased  to 
watch.     And  so  Walpole  set  himself,  by  an  organised 
system  of  bribery,  to  beat  down  opposition  within  his 


394  ///.sA'AM    AND  CRITICISM 

own  party,  and  to  secure  a  docile  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Perhaps  if  he  had  trusted  his 
party  a  little  more,  if  he  had  admitted  a  few  of  the 
aspiring  young  Whigs  in  the  House  to  office,  if  he 
had  been  less  jealous  of  his  personal  supremacy,  he 
might  have  avoided  his  disastrous  defeat  in  1742  ; 
certainly  he  would  have  left  politics  in  a  more  whole- 
some condition.  But  Walpole,  with  all  his  talents, 
was  an  opportunist.  He  was  not  trying  to  found  a 
new  system  of  Government  ;  he  was  merely  con- 
tending with  the  difficulties  of  the  moment. 

Nevertheless,  as  has  been  shown  in  a  previous 
chapter,  he  did  undoubtedly  contribute  a  large  share 
towards  the  establishment  of  a  new  system.  The 
independence  of  the  Cabinet  in  its  relations  with  the 
Crown,  the  necessity  for  at  least  outward  unity  among 
Ministers,  the  dependence  of  the  Cabinet  on  the  good 
will  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the  importance  of 
finance  as  the  centre  of  practical  politics — all  these 
features  of  the  Cabinet  system  were  clearly  brought 
out  during  his  tenure  of  office.  The  one  unsatis- 
factory element  in  that  system,  as  he  left  it,  was  the 
organisation  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which,  instead 
of  being  clearly  divided  into  two  great  parties,  repre- 
senting broad  differences  of  principle,  was  now  broken 
up  into  sections,  each  striving  to  snatch  the  sweets  of 
office  from  the  hands  of  its  rivals,  and  only  kept  in 
hand  by  the  use  of  doubtful  means. 

The  natural  result  is  to  be  seen  in  the  long  and 
unsatisfactory  period  of  politics  marked  by  the  Peaceof 
Aix-la-Chapelle  and  the  capitulation  of  Klosterseven, 
by  the  practical  dictatorship  of  Newcastle,  and,  just 


THE    TORY   PARTY  395 

as  things  appeared  to  be  improving,  by  the  stubborn 
and  partly  successful  attempt  of  George  II.  to  destroy 
the  new  system.  Had  not  the  Whigs,  confident  in 
their  numerical  superiority,  and  divided  by  personal 
jealousies,  been  accustomed  to  rely  more  on  pocket- 
boroughs  than  on  principles,  many  of  the  disasters 
which  marked  the  latter  years  of  George  II.  would 
have  been  avoided.  Still  more,  had  the  Whigs  been 
a  united  party,  the  brilliant  Ministry  of  the  elder  Pitt 
would  never  have  succumbed  to  the  intrigues  of  Bute 
and  Henry  Fox.  Finally,  had  the  Tories,  now  returned 
to  politics,  been  taught  to  regard  the  fall  of  the  Whigs 
as  the  natural  prelude  to  their  own  "admission  to 
office,  it  is  hardly  possible  that  they  would,  despite 
their  loyalty  to  the  throne,  have  cast  themselves 
abjectly  at  the  feet  of  the  youthful  monarch  ;  nor 
would  that  monarch,  but  for  the  precedents  of  Walpole 
and  Newcastle,  have  ventured  upon  a  career  of  shame- 
less corruption  which  far  outstripped  the  moderate 
lapses  of  Walpole,  and  even  exceeded  the  venalities 
of  the  Restoration. 

But,  though  the  immediate  result  of  the  reap- 
pearance of  the  Tory  party  was  unfavourable  to  the 
new  system,  it  ultimately  proved  to  be  the  element 
necessary  to  its  completion.  For  the  true  represen- 
tatives of  the  new  Tory  party  were,  not  the  slavish 
recipients  of  bribes  who  followed  North,  but  the  men 
who  crowded  to  Parliament,  after  the  elections  of 
1784,  to  support  the  youthful  Pitt.  And  it  was  he 
who,  by  his  bold  appeal  to  the  constituencies  against 
the  verdict  of  a  factious  House,  added  the  final 
principle  to  the  new  system,  and  established  the  great 


39^  HISTORY  AND   CRlTlCiS.\f 

doctrine,  that  the  supreme  arbitrament  of  politics 
belongs,  neither  to  the  Crown,  nor  to  the  Cabinet,  nor 
to  Parliament,  but  to  the  constituencies.  It  is  this 
fact  which,  perhaps  more  than  any  other,  explains 
the  bitterness  of  the  Coalition  in  1784,  The  sup- 
porters of  Fox  and  North,  nursed  in  the  evil  traditions 
of  Parliamentary  corruption,  regarded  with  dismay 
the  prospect  of  a  step  which  would  destroy  the 
supremacy  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and,  as  a 
natural  consequence,  render  it  less  imperative  for  the 
Ministry  of  the  day  to  conciliate  the  existing  members. 
Hence,  Pitt's  action  in  1784  was  not  merely  a  new 
development  of  the  Cabinet  System  ;  it  was  really  a 
powerful  blow  struck  in  the  cause  of  Reform.  The 
more  evident  it  became  that  the  constituencies  were 
now  a  working  force  in  politics,  the  more  inevitable 
it  became  that  the  constituencies  should  be  widened. 
It  might,  with  some  shadow  of  plausibility,  be  urged 
that,  so  long  as  the  government  of  England  was, 
avowedly,  not  popular,  but  Parliamentary,  it  was  in 
accordance  with  the  fitness  of  things  that  the  House  of 
Commons  should  be  chosen  by  the  privileged  classes 
in  the  country.  But,  when  the  appeal  to  public 
opinion  was  admitted  as  a  normal  principle  of  govern- 
ment, it  became  absurd  to  urge  that  public  opinion 
was  fairly  represented  by  the  accidental  anomalies  of 
decayed  boroughs,  or  even  by  the  faggot  votes  of  the 
counties.  Thus  the  Reform  Act  itself,  though  it, 
doubtless,  made  great  changes  in  the  policy  of  the 
State,  made  little  change  in  the  machinery  of  the 
Cabinet  System.  For  its  principles  had  already  been 
anticipated  by  the  momentous  precedent  of  1784. 


EVOLUTION   OF   THE   CAB/NET  SYSTEM  397 

In  concluding  this  brief  summary  of  the  evolution 
of  the  Cabinet  System,  it  may  be  permissible  to  point 
out  one  fact,  which  can  hardly  have  escaped  the 
notice  of  the  reader,  but  which  will,  nevertheless,  bear 
mention.  This  is,  the  extraordinarily  unconscious 
character  of  the  whole  process  which  has  resulted  in  the 
establishment  of  the  system.  Each  step  has  been  the 
consequence,  not  of  any  matured  scheme  for  the  reform 
of  the  Constitution,  but  of  the  practical  exigencies  of 
a  particular  situation.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  actual 
Law  of  the  Constitution  stands  on  no  different  foot- 
ing from  that  occupied  by  any  other  part  of  our  legal 
system,  that  there  are  no  more  stringent  legal 
guarantees  against  infringement  of  the  most  cardinal 
principle  of  that  Constitution  than  those  which  pro- 
tect and  enforce  the  least  important  rule  of  private 
law.  That  fact  is  striking  enough  ;  and  it  is  a  serious 
stumbling  block  to  those  who  approach  the  study  of 
the  Constitution  from  the  outside.  But  the  really  vital 
fact  is,  that  many  of  the  most  important  rules  which 
govern  the  practical  working  of  our  political  system 
are  not,  in  the  strict  sense,  Law  at  all,  but  merely 
conventions  which  are  observed,  without  legal  com- 
pulsion, by  those  engaged  in  the  administration  of 
affairs.  If  we  except  the  Act  which  limits  the  dura- 
tion of  Parliament  to  seven  years,  and  the  various 
Place  Acts,  which  exclude  officials  of  the  Crown  from 
the  House  of  Commons,  it  is  hard  to  recall  any  single 
principle  of  the  Cabinet  system  which  is  embodied, 
even  indirectly,  in  an  Act  of  Parliament.  A  student 
of  tireless  industry  might  wade  through  the  long 
series  of  volumes   in  which  our  statute  law  is  con- 


398  HISTORY   AND   CRITICISM 

tained,  without  gleaning  the  most  distant  hint  of  its 
existence. 

Nor  is  it  recognised  by  that  important  part  of 
our  legal  system  which  depends  for  its  validity 
upon  the  decisions  of  the  Law  Courts.  A  lawyer 
who  had  all  these  decisions  at  his  fingers' 
ends  might  be  in  complete  ignorance  of  its  most 
important  features.  It  has  been  mentioned  that 
Blackstone,  the  classical  exponent  of  English  law 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  passes  it  over 
in  complete  silence.  And  though,  as  has  also  been 
suggested,  Blackstone  may  have  had  special  reasons 
for  his  attitude,  no  such  suggestion  can  apply  to 
acute  foreign  critics,  such  as  Montesquieu  and 
Delolme,  who  studied  the  working  of  government 
in  England  in  the  second  and  third  quarters  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  And  yet  Montesquieu  finds  the 
secret  of  the  British  Constitution  in  the  fact,  that  the 
legislative  and  the  executive  authorities  are  lodged 
in  absolutely  independent  hands ;  while  Delolme 
announces,  with  an  air  of  profound  wisdom,  that 
the  immediate  cause  of  English  liberty  is  "  the 
having  placed  all  the  Executive  authority  in  the 
State  out  of  the  hands  of  those  in  whom  the  people 
trust."  But  perhaps  the  most  striking  testimony  to 
the  impalpable  qualities  of  the  system  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that,  so  late  as  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  statesmen  of  the 
great  colonies  of  Australia — men  of  exceptional 
ability,  steeped  in  English  traditions — tried  to  re- 
produce it  in  their  own  Constitution  Statutes,  they 
were  baffled  and  ultimately  beaten  by  the  difficulties 


POLITICS   IN  SOLUTION  399 

of  the  task.  It  was  their  unanimous  wish  to  make 
the  Cabinet  System  the  express  law  of  their  colonies. 
They  found  it  impossible  to  do  so,  and  had  to  be 
content  with  the  humbler  task  of  striving  to  avoid 
inserting",  in  the  written  law,  any  provisions  which 
might  actually  conflict  with  the  working  of  that 
elusive  and  impalpable  scheme  which  they  were 
fully  determined  to  introduce.  It  is  possible  to 
go  even  a  step  further,  and  to  doubt  whether  the 
Cabinet  system  is  capable  of  being  described,  in  a 
complete  and  thorough  way,  even  in  a  treatise  which 
does  not  suffer  from  the  limitations  of  an  Act  of 
Parliament.  At  any  rate,  there  does  not  appear  to 
be  any  such  complete  exposition  in  existence. 
Burke's  famous  pamphlet  is  a  defence  rather  than 
a  description  ;  Macaulay's  eloquent  work  is  a  his- 
tory of  the  early  stages  of  a  process  which  was  but 
just  beginning  at  the  time  at  which  his  work  ends  ; 
Bagehot's  masterly  essays  are  suggestive  and  inspir- 
ing sketches  rather  than  a  complete  picture.  Perhaps 
Mr.  Leonard  Courtney's  recent  book,  The  Working 
Constitution  of  the  United  Kingdom,  is  the  most 
thorough  and  systematic  attempt  to  depict  the  system 
in  its  entirety  ;  but  it  is  too  soon  yet  to  say  whether 
his  work  will  be  accepted  as  a  classic.1  For  the  real 
truth  seems  to  be,  that  the  Cabinet  system  is  rather  a 
means  of  disguising  the  machinery  of  government, 
than  the  machinery  of  government  itself.  It  is 
politics  in   solution. 

1  The  writer  ventures  to  suggest,  with  all  the  deference  due  to  an 
author  of  Mr.  Courtney's  great  political  experience,  that  the  House  of 
Commons  plays  top  .large  a  part,  and  the  Cabinet  too  small  a  part,  in 
his  picture, 


400  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 


II. 


If,  however,  abandoning  the  almost  hopeless  effort 
to  dogmatise  about  the  structure  of  the  Cabinet 
System,  we  turn  to  consider  a  few  of  the  important 
results  which  its  introduction  has  produced,  we  are 
not  met  by  any  insuperable  difficulty. 

In  the  first  place  we  may  say,  without  much  fear  of 
contradiction,  that  one  most  striking  result  has  been, 
the  increase  in  the  popularity  and  prestige  of  the 
Crown.  The  English  character  is  a  curious  com- 
pound of  deference  and  criticism.  It  clings  with 
desperate  tenacity  to  institutions  which,  in  appear- 
ance at  least,  have  ceased  to  have  any  practical 
force.  But  it  is  as  far  as  possible  from  accepting 
meekly  the  guidance  of  actual  authority.  In  other 
words,  it  does  not  speculate  about  the  ideal  fitness 
of  institutions  which  cause  it  no  practical  incon- 
venience ;  but  it  is  apt  to  question  very  sharply  the 
title  of  people  who  interfere  with  its  wishes,  as  all 
actual  rulers  of  the  people  must  inevitably  do. 
There  is  a  happy  story  of  a  native  Minister  in  an 
Oriental  state  which  was  very  much  under  the 
"influence"  of  an  European  Power.  The  question 
was  as  to  the  appointment  of  a  subordinate  official. 

The  native  Minister  wished  to  appoint  A ;  the 

European  Power  was  determined  that  B should 

be  appointed.  The  representative  of  European  in- 
fluence, anxious  to  soften  the  harshness  of  the 
situation,     endeavoured     to     persuade     the     native 

Minister  that  B was  really  the  better  man  for 

the  post — to  make  B 's  appointment,  in  fagt,  the 


THE  ENGLISH  ATTITUDE  IN  POLITICS  4OI 

ostensible  act  of  the  native  Minister.     But  he  found 
his  opponent  inflexible.     Upon  an  abstract  question 
of  that  kind   no  concession  was  possible  ;  and  the 
argument   threatened    to   become   endless.     At    last 
the  representative  of  European  influence  was  obliged 
to  hint,  that  his  Government  was  determined  to  have 
its  own  way.    Whereupon,  with  true  Oriental  phlegm, 
the  defeated  Minister  remarked, — "  If  it  is  an  order,  I 
have  nothing  more  to  say."     The  practical  result  of 
the  struggle  seemed  to  him  of  no  importance  com- 
pared with  the  abstract  merits  of  the  case.     That  is 
just  the  precise  opposite  of  the  English  attitude  in 
politics.     Charles  I.  lost  his  head,  not  because  he  was 
a  bad  man,  but  because  he  would  interfere  with  the 
working   of  politics   in    a   way  which   annoyed    the 
average  Englishman.     Charles   II.,  whose  notion  of 
the  prerogative  was  probably  quite  as  high  as  that 
of  his  father,  and  whose  character  was  infinitely  worse, 
was  usually  popular  with  the  nation,  because  he  did 
not  actively  thwart  its  wishes.     James  II.  might  have 
professed  Catholicism  to  the  end  of  his  life,  if  he  had 
not  insisted  on  disturbing  vested  interests.     George  I. 
and  George  II.,  despite  the  want  of  attractiveness  in 
their    persons   and   characters,  and   despite  the  dis- 
advantage of  their  foreign  birth,  were  not  seriously 
unpopular,  because,  and    mainly    because,   they   had 
the  good  sense  to  abstain  from  the  active  conduct 
of  internal  politics.     George   III.,  despite  the  com- 
parative advantages  of  his  birth  and  education,  and 
the  enthusiasm  with  which    his   accession  was  wel- 
comed, soon  lost  his  popularity,  because  he  became 
involved    in    the   turmoil    of   practical    politics.     He 

27 


402  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

regained  it  when  age  and  disease  had  compelled 
him  to  withdraw  from  the  real  conduct  of  affairs. 
It  would  have  been  useless  for  an  English  republi- 
can of  the  year  1810  to  point  out  to  an  audience  of 
average  Englishmen,  that  the  ostensible  conduct  of 
affairs  of  State  was  in  the  hands  of  a  man  suffering 
from  senile  decay.  They  would  have  said — "  Poor 
old  man  !  But  he  does  what  his  Ministers  tell  him." 
George  IV.  came  near  to  losing  his  crown  by  his 
action  with  respect  to  the  Queen  ;  in  other  words, 
by  following  his  own  personal  views.  But  he  became 
quite  popular,  despite  his  worthless  character,  when 
he  placed  himself  Tn  the  hands  of  his  advisers. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  William  IV.,  not- 
withstanding his  earlier  liberal  sympathies,  would 
have  blocked  the  passage  of  the  Reform  Bill  if  he 
had  dared  ;  but  he  bowed  before  the  advice  of  his 
Ministers,  and  saved  his  popularity,  perhaps  his 
throne.  It  is  now  known  that  the  perfect  attitude 
of  Queen  Victoria  on  political  questions  was  not 
reached  without  an  inward  struggle,  of  which  the 
famous  "  Bedchamber  Question  "  was  the  only 
evidence  which  the  public  of  the  clay  was  permitted 
to  see.  But  the  results  of  the  victory  became  every 
year  more  apparent  in  the  increasing  popularity  of 
the  Crown,  till  they  culminated  in  a  position  so 
enviable,  so  unique,  that  it  seemed  almost  beyond 
the  possibilities  of  humanity.  Strange  political 
suggestions  are  continually  mooted,  but  it  is  surely 
permissible  to  wonder  whether  any  more  rash  pro- 
posal has  ever  been  made  than  that  which  occa- 
sionally crops    up,  to  the   effect   that   the   monarch 


THE  ROYAL   PREROGATIVE  40$ 

should  take  a  more  direct — that  is,  a  more  avowed 
— share  in  British  politics.     To  realise  the  full  mean- 
ing of  this  proposal,  we  have  only  to  think  of  what 
would  have  been   the  result  if  Queen  Victoria  had 
been  believed   to  be  personally  responsible   for   the 
prosecution  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh,  or  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  in  the  sense  in  which 
George  III.  was  known  to  be  personally  responsible 
for  the  prosecution  of  Wilkes,  and  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  American  Stamp  Act.     It  has  been  before 
remarked,  that  there  has  now  ceased  to  be  a  party 
in  the  State  specially  devoted  to  the  defence  of  the 
royal  prerogative.     But  that  is  simply  because  there 
has  long  ceased  to  be  any  party  which  desires  to 
limit   the   prerogative.      It  is  absurd   to  defend  that 
which    nobody    dreams    of   attacking.     In    the   year 
1780  Dunning  carried,  in   the   House  of  Commons, 
a    motion    to    the    effect    that   "  the   power    of    the 
Crown   has   increased,  is    increasing,   and   ought   to 
be   diminished."     Such   a    motion,  in  such  a  place, 
would  not  only  have  now  no  chance  of  success ;  it 
would  be  absurd  and  meaningless.     It  would  be  as 
if  a  man  called  upon  the  public  to  observe,  that  the 
way  in  which  he  conducted   his   own   business  was 


wrong. 


It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  this  result  of  the  Cabinet  System.  For  if  it  is  a 
good  thing  that  the  Crown  should  be  popular  in 
Great  Britain,  it  is  absolutely  essential,  if  the  unity 
of  the  Empire  is  to  be  preserved,  that  the  Crown 
should  be  popular  in  the  Greater  Britain  beyond  the 
seas.     The  Englishman  whose  sentiments  and  tradi- 


404  J/ /STORY  AND   CRITICISM 

tions  are  coloured  by  the  memories  of  struggles  in 
which  the  Parliament  at  Westminster  has  played  a 
leading  part,  is  apt  to  forget  that  those  memories 
and  associations  appeal  but  faintly  to  the  millions  of 
his  fellow-subjects  in  Asia,  Africa,  America,  and 
Australasia.  A  personal  acquaintance  with  the  trend 
of  colonial  thought  is  apt  to  startle  the  home-bred 
islander.  He  finds  that  the  sovereignty  of  that 
Parliament  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  look 
upon  with  veneration,  as  the  parent  of  his  liberties,  is 
regarded  with  much  less  enthusiasm  by  the  citizen  of 
Melbourne  or  Quebec.  The  latter  is,  in  fact,  inclined 
to  treat  the  sovereignty  of  the  British  Parliament  as 
an  ingenious  device  for  imposing  the  prejudices  of 
the  mother  country  upon  her  children,  rather  than  as 
a  bulwark  of  his  liberties.  For  the  realisation  of  his 
own  strong  ideals  he  looks,  not  to  the  Parliament  at 
Westminster,  but  to  his  own  Parliament ;  and  he  is 
apt  to  resent  very  strongly  any  claim  of  superiority 
on  behalf  of  the  older  institution.  And  it  is  difficult 
to  allege  that  his  criticism  is  unfounded.  The  average 
level  of  political  intelligence  is  at  least  as  high  in 
Australia  and  in  Canada  as  it  is  in  the  United 
Kingdom  ;  while,  in  the  knowledge  of  local  facts,  the 
Colonial  Parliament  has  an  unquestioned  advantage. 
But  no  such  divided  allegiance  distracts  the  reverence 
of  the  same  man  for  the  Crown.  There  is  but  one 
King  in  all  the  British  Empire ;  there  are  many 
Parliaments.  King  Edward  is  his  King  ;  in  a  sense 
in  which  the  British  Parliament  is  not  his  Parliament. 
Every  act  of  State,  down  to  the  delivery  of  a  half- 
penny post-card,  is  done,  in  his  colony,  no  less  than  in 


POPULARITY    OF   THE    CROWN  405 

Great  Britain,  in  the  name  of  the  Crown,  or,  at  least, 
in  the  name  of  a  Governor  who  is,  avowedly,  the 
servant  of  the  Crown.  His  Ministers  are  the 
Ministers  of  the  Crown  ;  and,  as  such,  entitled  to  act 
without  reference  to  the  Parliament  at  Westminster. 
If  you  point  out  to  him  that  a  statute  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament  could,  according  to  legal  theory,  reverse 
the  most  cherished  doctrine  of  his  political  faith — 
for  example,  introduce  Free  Trade  in  the  place  of 
Protection — he  will  warn  you  grimly,  that  it  is 
dangerous  to  talk  in  that  way,  if  you  value  the  unity 
of  the  Empire.  So  far  as  institutions  are  a  bond,  it 
is,  in  fact,  the  popularity  of  the  Crown,  and  not  the 
popularity  of  the  British  Parliament,  which  holds  the 
Empire  together ;  and  it  is  the  legal  position  of  the 
Crown,  as  the  supreme  organ  of  political  activity, 
which  enables  the  Empire  to  speak  with  a  single 
voice.  Doubtless  the  sentiment  of  brotherhood  is 
the  life-blood  of  the  political  organism.  But  an 
organism,  to  be  successful  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  needs  a  head  as  well  as  a  heart.1 

It  is  natural,  at  this  point,  to  meet  an  objection 
which  is  sometimes  levelled,  by  the  critics  of  the 
Cabinet  System,  at  the  present  position  of  the  Crown. 
What,  say  these  critics,  is  the  use  of  exalting  the 
dignity  of  the   monarch,  if  you  deprive  him   of  real 

1  An  extreme  hypothesis  may  be  put  as  a  test  of  the  view  expressed 
above,  regarding  the  relative  importance  of  Crown  and  Parliament  in 
imperial  affairs.  Suppose  that  an  unforeseen  series  of  calamities  were 
to  render  it  necessary  for  the  nation  to  provide  against  a  failure  of 
succession  to  the  throne.  Would  the  choice  again  be  left  to  the  unfettered 
discretion  of  the  two  Houses  of  the  British  Parliament,  as  it  was  in  1688, 
or  in  1 700  ? 


406  HISTORY   AND    CRITICISM 

power  ?  To  which  it  might  very  well  be  answered, 
that  the  mere  fact  that  the  Crown  is  the  symbol  of 
unity,  is  of  priceless  value  to  the  stability  of  the 
political  structure.  No  sane  student  of  politics 
doubts  the  influence  of  sentiment  in  the  affairs  of 
State  ;  and,  when  a  widespread  sentiment  makes  for 
unity  and  reverence,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  over- 
rate its  importance.  But  there  is  no  need  to  resort 
to  this  plea  in  abatement.  We  should  rather 
challenge  the  objectors  to  prove  their  assertion,  that 
the  Cabinet  System  deprives  the  monarch  of  real 
power.  No  doubt  it  deprives  him  of  ostensible  power  ; 
but  that  is  a  very  different  thing.  It  is,  of  course, 
difficult  for  any  one  who  has  never  taken  part  in  the 
inner  working  of  practical  politics,  to  speak  with  any 
degree  of  confidence  about  such  a  delicate  mystery  as 
the  secret  relations  between  Crown  and  Cabinet. 
But  from  time  to  time  facts  leak  out  which  seem  to 
show,  that  the  occupant  of  the  British  throne  is  very 
far  from  being  that  mere  figure-head  which  super- 
ficial writers  and  speakers  have  imagined.  Much 
probably  depends,  as  it  surely  should  do,  on  the 
personal  character  and  experience  of  the  monarch. 
It  would  hardly,  for  example,  be  hazardous  to  guess 
that,  at  least  during  the  latter  half  of  her  illustrious 
reign,  the  influence  of  Queen  Victoria  upon  practical 
politics  was  very  great.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the 
theory  of  the  Cabinet  System  which  makes  such  an 
influence  in  the  slightest  degree  unconstitutional. 
The  virtue  of  the  Cabinet  System  is,  that,  while  it 
gives  the  nation  the  full  benefit  of  the  wisdom  of  a 
great  and  good  monarch,  it  limits  the  power  for  harm 


VIRTUE    OF   THE    CABINET   SYSTEM  ^OJ 

of  a  bad  or  incapable  monarch.  And,  inasmuch  as, 
with  an  hereditary  monarchy,  there  cannot  possibly 
be  any  guarantee  that  the  actual  occupant  of  the 
throne  will  be  either  great  or  good,  this  feature  of  the 
Cabinet  System  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  its 
chiefest  virtues.  For,  while  it  is  not  possible,  if  the 
rule  of  heredity  is  strictly  observed,  to  guarantee  a 
succession  of  great  monarchs,  it  is  possible,  by  careful 
training,  to  be  reasonably  secure,  that  the  heir  to  the 
throne  shall  be  brought  up  to  realise  and  perform  the 
not  very  difficult  duties  which  his  future  position  will 
imperatively  require  of  him.  In  other  words,  the 
Cabinet  System  demands  little  of  a  monarch  who  has 
little  to  give  ;  while  it  is  capable  of  receiving  much 
from  a  monarch  who  has  much  to  bestow.  And  if  it 
does,  to  some  extent,  conceal  the  merits  of  a  really 
great  ruler,  it  acts  as  a  merciful  screen  to  the  follies 
or  the  weaknesses  of  a  bad  one.  It  is,  just  precisely 
on  this  account,  the  most  suitable  complement  of  an 
hereditary  monarchy,  in  which  the  personal  character 
of  the  monarch  is  largely  a  matter  of  accident. 

A  second  and  equally  striking  result  of  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Cabinet  System,  is  the  unity  which  it 
has  given,  not  only  to  the  different  parts  of  the 
Empire,  but  to  the  political  organs  of  the  mother 
country  itself.  It  was  just  precisely  this  point  which 
was  missed  by  Montesquieu  and  Delolme,  and  which 
was  brought  out  by  Bagehot,  with  his  usual  felicity,  in 
his  famous  comparison  of  the  Cabinet  to  a  hyphen, 
which  links  together  Crown  and  Parliament.  The 
dangers  of  a  divided  authority  had  been  seen  in  a 
lurid  light  in  the  evils  of  the  Civil  War — a  war  which 


408  ///STORY  AND   CRITICISM 

was  really  inevitable,  because  by  the  old  Constitution 
neither  the  Crown  nor  the  Parliament  was  supreme, 
and  because  each  was  unwilling  to  admit  the  super- 
iority of  the  other.  Similar  difficulties  have  occurred 
in  the  ancient  world,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman 
Republic  ;  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  in  the  Republic  of 
Venice  and  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  ;  and  in  modern 
times,  as  in  the  history  of  the  United  States  of 
America.  After  the  Restoration,  the  government  of 
England  was,  for  more  than  half  a  century,  in  a 
condition  of  unstable  equilibrium.  Two  changes  of 
dynasty  did  not  solve  the  difficulty.  James  II.  and 
his  Parliaments  could  not  agree  ;  William  of  Orange 
more  than  once  threatened  to  return  to  Holland  ; 
and  George  I.  uttered  similar  threats.  But  never, 
since  the  days  of  George  I.,  has  there  been  a  quarrel 
between  Parliament  and  the  Crown,  save  for  the  few 
brief  months  at  the  beginning  of  1784  ;  and  on  that 
occasion  the  new  system  soon  found  a  complete 
remedy.  Even  the  boasted  independence  of  the  Law 
Courts  is  not  proof  against  the  unifying  influence  of  the 
Cabinet;  for  any  quarrel  between  them  and  the  other 
organs  of  State  can  be  promptly  extinguished  by 
legislation  introduced  by  the  Government  of  the  day, 
as  was  proved  by  the  result  of  the  Hansard  libel  case 
in  1840.1  It  is  not,  however,  only  between  the  great 
branches  of  State  authority  that  quarrels  may  occur. 

1  The  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  held  Messrs.  Hansard,  the  Parlia- 
mentary printers,  responsible  for  libellous  statements  contained  in  a 
report  published  by  order  of  the  House  of  Commons.  An  x\ct  was 
passed  providing  that  such  publications  should,  for  the  future,  be 
privileged  from  liability. 


POWER    OF    THE    CABINET  409 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out,  that  one  of  the  real 
possibilities  of  the  Revolution  was  the  establishment 
of  a  dominating  bureaucracy  ;  and,  if  that  had  resulted, 
the  opportunities  of  friction  between  rival  offices 
would  have  been  endless.  Even  now,  with  the  pre- 
sent very  moderate  system  of  official  machinery,  it  is 
occasionally  whispered  that  there  are  differences  of 
opinion  between  departments  of  the  permanent  ser- 
vices. But  the  great  influence  of  the  Cabinet  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  any  such  germs  of  dissension 
before  they  have  time  to  develope  into  serious  dangers. 
For  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  care  very  little  about 
details  of  administration,  and  are  not  likely  to 
champion  very  ardently  the  quarrels  of  their  sub- 
ordinates ;  while  they  care  a  great  deal  that  the 
wheels  of  the  State  machinery  should  appear  to  run 
smoothly,  for  any  obstruction  or  disorder  would  dis- 
credit their  reputation. 

But  the  unifying  influence  of  the  Cabinet  is  not 
confined  to  composing  quarrels  between  the  different 
oreans  of  State.  It  reallv  wields,  at  least  in  secular 
affairs,  that  immense  and  comprehensive  force  which 
lawyers  call  the  Sovereignty  of  the  State,  because 
(with  the  important  reservation  to  be  hereafter 
mentioned)  it  can  make  that  force,  which  has  no  legal 
limits,  take  any  direction  which  it  pleases.  If  it 
cannot  do  so,  it  ceases  to  be  a  Cabinet,  and  has  to 
resign.  Of  course  its  power,  like  all  human  power,  is, 
limited  by  human  possibilities  ;  but  there  are  no  other 
limitations.  And,  be  it  observed,  the  Cabinet  acts 
without  formality,  without  publicity,  without  fixed 
rules  of  procedure.     A  few  gentlemen  meet  together 


4IO  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

occasionally  in  a  room  in  Downing  Street,  and  decide 
the  fate  of  that  immense  and  complicated  organism 
known  as  the  British  Empire,  with  its  hundreds  of 
millions  of  inhabitants.  No  doubt  some  of  its  deci- 
sions require  the  sanction  of  subsequent  Acts  of 
Parliament  ;  but  if  the  Cabinet  really  represents,  as 
it  is  supposed  to  do,  the  majority  in  Parliament, 
those  Acts  follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  No  doubt 
its  policy  may  be  thwarted  by  appeals  to  the  Law 
Courts  ;  but,  if  necessary,  the  Law  Courts  also  can 
be  brought  into  harmony  by  Acts  of  Parliament.  In 
theory  also,  and  perhaps  (if  the  crisis  were  urgent 
enough)  in  fact,  by  the  same  means  the  Cabinet  could 
overrule  the  opposition  of  the  Church — for  example, 
if  it  resolved  that  a  portion  of  the  annual  sum  pay- 
able for  tithes  in  England  should  be  appropriated  to 
the  needs  of  the  State.  No  doubt  the  Cabinet  acts 
at  its  peril  ;  its  authority  is  moral  only,  not  physical. 
But  the  great  merit  of  the  Cabinet  is  that,  in  a 
moment  of  supreme  national  crisis,  it  could,  if  its 
members  had  sufficient  nerve,  call  into  active  exercise 
the  whole  of  the  vast  slumbering  energies  of  the 
Empire — could,  for  example,  levy  five  million  men, 
and  impose  an  income  tax  of  fifteen  shillings  in  the 
pound  throughout  the  dominions  of  the  Crown.  It 
could  do  this,  and  do  it  with  extraordinary  swiftness, 
if — and  only  if — it  had  the  united  opinion  of  the 
Empire  behind  it  ;  for,  whilst  its  power  to  give  effect 
to  public  opinion  is  immense,  its  power  to  thwart 
public  opinion  is  comparatively  small.  This  is 
perhaps  the  highest  praise  that  can  be  awarded,  by 
those  who  believe  in  the  vox  populi^  to  any  organ  of 


THE   HOUSE    OF  LORDS  4 1  I 

Government  ;  and  it  is  perhaps  to  the  Cabinet 
System,  as  much  as  to  the  sovereign  power  of  Parlia- 
ment, that  we  owe  what  Mr.  Bryce  has  so  happily 
termed  the  "flexibility"  of  our  Constitution. 

To  this  striking  feature  of  the  Cabinet  System 
there  is  but  one  serious  qualification.  This  is,  it 
need  hardly  be  said,  the  position  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  apologists  of  that  venerable  body, 
anxious  to  find  a  justification  for  its  existence,  have 
imagined  for  it  a  serene  impartiality  which  greatly 
moderates  the  strife  of  contending  parties,  and  pre- 
serves the  nation  from  the  ill-effects  of  hasty  legisla- 
tion. It  has  a  right,  they  say,  to  correct  the  judg- 
ment of  the  House  of  Commons  by  the  judgment  of 
the  constituencies.  Such  a  position  is  not  without 
its  value  ;  certainly  condemnation  of  the  House  of 
Lords  is  not  condemnation  of  the  bicameral  system. 
But  every  one  knows  that  the  House  of  Lords  is  not 
an  impartial  body  ;  it  is  notoriously  partisan,  and  has 
been  for  a  century  past.  Practically  speaking,  it 
never  suspends  the  judgment  of  the  House  of 
Commons  when  a  Tory  government  is  in  power. 
It  risked  a  revolution  in  1832,  and  threatened  to  do 
so  again  in  1884,  because  the  Reform  Bills  of  those 
years  were  introduced  by  Liberal  Cabinets.  But  it 
swallowed  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867  with  scarcely 
a  murmur,  because  it  was  introduced  by  a  Tory 
Ministry.  In  short,  the  House  of  Lords  is  useless 
as  a  Court  of  Appeal  ;  for  it  is  always  known  before- 
hand what  its  judgment  will  be. 

The    unsatisfactory    character    of    the    House    of 
Lords   has    been    long   admitted,  by   all    but   those 


412  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

extreme  partisans,  who  believe  that  the  Tory  party- 
is  invariably  right,  and  its  opponents  invariably 
wrong.  And  suggestions  have  from  time  to  time 
been  made,  with  a  view  of  bringing  the  Upper  House 
into  harmony  with  the  principles  upon  which  Cabinet 
government  is  based.  One  of  these  is  the  adoption 
of  the  rule,  that  if,  upon  a  dissolution  provoked  by 
the  refusal  of  the  House  of  Lords  to  carry  a  measure 
passed  by  the  Commons,  the  elections  should  con- 
firm the  judgment  of  the  Lower  House,  the  Lords 
should  then  give  way.  It  is  no  objection  to  this 
suggestion,  that  it  proposes  to  depend  upon  a  rule 
of  custom  rather  than  a  rule  of  law.  Many  of  the 
essential  rules  of  our  Constitution  are,  as  we  have 
seen,  similarly  circumstanced.  But  it  is  a  strong 
objection,  that  the  liberty  thus  by  implication  allowed 
to  the  House  of  Lords  might  cause  disastrous  delay 
in  the  working  of  politics,  and  nullify  what,  as  we 
have  urged,  is  one  of  the  chief  virtues  of  the  Cabinet 
System.  It  is  not  impossible  to  imagine  a  crisis  in 
which  the  clear  judgment  of  the  Cabinet,  backed  by 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
was  in  favour  of  a  particular  course.  Let  us  suppose, 
for  example,  a  situation  so  grave  that,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Cabinet,  it  could  only  be  met  by  the 
immediate  grant  of  self-government  to  a  colony 
which  had  not  hitherto  enjoyed  it,  or  the  immediate 
withdrawal  of  self-government  from  a  colony  to 
which  it  had  previously  been  granted.  Such  a  step 
would  necessitate  the  passing  of  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  delay  caused  by  an  appeal  to  the  con- 
stituencies might  rob  the  measure  of  its  entire  merit 


THE   SPIRIT   OF  LENIENCY  413 

as  the  solution  of  a  critical  situation.  And  yet, 
according  to  this  doctrine,  the  House  of  Lords  would 
be  well  within  its  province  in  demanding  such  an 
appeal.  The  House  of  Lords  might  conceivably,  in 
such  a  case,  be  right.  But  it  is  entirely  at  variance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Cabinet  System,  that  the  House 
of  Lords  should  be  the  final  arbiter  in  such  a  matter. 
It  would  seem  that  the  older  remedy  for  the  difficulty, 
a  remedy  which  was  actually  practised  on  a  small 
scale  in  171 2,  and  which  was  threatened  in  1832,  is 
far  more  efficacious  and  less  dangerous.  In  such  a 
crisis,  the  power  of  creating  new  peers  ought  to  be 
used  freely  and  promptly.  In  all  probability  the 
mere  threat  would  be  enough,  as  it  was  in  1832. 
But,  even  if  it  were  not,  there  would  seem  to  be 
little  harm  in  carrying  it  into  execution.  A  numerous 
House  of  Lords  is  no  more  dangerous,  politically, 
than  a  small  House  of  Lords.  The  only  harm 
involved  would  be  to  the  exclusive  privileges  of  the 
existing  peers  ;  and  for  this  they  would  have  them- 
selves to  thank.  Vested  interests  cannot  be  allowed 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  national  safety. 

A  third  very  marked  accompaniment,  if  not  a 
result,  of  the  Cabinet  System,  is  the  spirit  of  leniency 
which  has  come  over  politics  in  the  last  century  and 
a  half.  Under  the  old  system,  the  monarch,  very 
naturally,  resented  any  criticism  upon  his  Ministers 
as  a  personal  attack  upon  himself.  This  fact  at  once 
rendered  the  whole  situation  tragic.  The  Opposition 
(if  we  may  be  guilty  of  a  slight  anachronism)  hesi- 
tated to  apply  temperate  criticism,  when  they  knew 
that  it  might  bring  down  upon  them  the  personal 


4H  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

resentment  of  the  Crown,  and  when  they  felt  that 
they  had  no  means  of  making  their  criticism  effective. 
It  is  the  great  honour  of  Elizabeth  that,  at  least  on 
some  occasions,  she  rose  superior  to  natural  tendencies. 
But  her  successors  were  less  wise.  As  a  consequence, 
the  Minister  and  his  critics  fought  with  buttonless 
foils.  If  the  Minister  was  successful,  his  opponents 
went  to  prison  or  the  pillory.  If  the  Opposition  won, 
the  Minister  went  to  the  block,  or  saved  himself  by 
flight.  Buckingham,  it  is  true,  anticipated  his  fate, 
by  falling  a  victim  to  the  dagger  of  Felton.  But 
Strafford  and  Laud  paid  for  the  failure  of  their 
policy  with  their  heads  ;  Danby  and  Oxford  were 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower  and  had  to  stand  trial  for 
their  lives  ;  while  Finch,  Windebank,  Clarendon, 
Sunderland,  and  Bolingbroke,  sought  safety  in  flight. 
Walpole,  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  was 
the  first  of  a  new  order.  When  he  fell  in  1742,  his 
enemies,  following  established  precedent,  talked 
loudly  of  impeachment.  But  it  soon  occurred  to 
them  that  it  was  idle  to  slay  a  dead  foe.  What 
they  wanted  were  his  offices  and  power  ;  and  those 
they  had  secured.  Why  insist  on  the  blood  of  a 
man  who  no  longer  stood  in  their  way  ?  And  thus 
began  that  reign  of  tolerance  in  politics  which  permits 
the  warmest  friendship  between  men  who  thunder 
nightly  at  one  another  across  the  floor  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  which  finds  its  extreme  expression 
in  the  practice  of  conferring  titles  and  dignities  upon 
men  who  have  just  been  declared,  by  the  solemn 
voice  of  the  representatives  of  the  nation,  to  be 
unworthy  of  the  confidence  of  the  Crown.     It  is,  of 


MEN  AND  MEASURES  415 

course,  an  obvious  criticism  on  this  striking  change, 
that  leniency  towards  political  errors  may  lead  to 
carelessness  on  the  one  side  and  to  captious  criticism 
on  the  other.  But  there  are  better  safeguards  against 
neglect  oF  duty  than  the  fear  of  cruel  punishment. 
A  Minister  now  knows  that  one  defeat  does  not  mean 
an  end  to  his  career.  If  his  conduct  has  really  been 
justifiable,  he  will  have  future  opportunities  of  justify- 
ing it.  If  he  is  too  old  to  look  for  a  return  to  office, 
he  will  have  younger  colleagues  who  will  do  their 
best  to  prevent  him  discrediting  them.  A  member 
of  the  Opposition  knows,  too,  if  he  is  a  wise  man, 
that  nothing  so  surely  tends  to  exclude  him  from  the 
prospects  of  office,  as  captious  and  groundless  critic- 
ism, even  of  his  opponents.  After  all,  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  an  error  of  judgment  and 
a  crime  ;  and  the  fact  that  the  one  is  no  longer 
punished  as  the  other,  makes  it  all  the  more  easy  to 
apply  to  the  error  of  judgment  the  penalty  really 
suitable  to  the  case. 

Finally,  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  questions 
that  can  be  asked  of  any  system  of  government — 
what  sort  of  men  and  what  sort  of  measures  does 
it  bring  to  the  service  of  the  country  ?  For  it  matters 
little  that  a  Constitution  is  the  most  perfect  piece  of 
political  machinery  that  philosophy  can  devise,  if  it  is, 
de  facto,  in  the  hands  of  incapable  or  inferior  agents, 
and  does,  de  facto,  produce  bad  measures.  This  is 
evidently  not  a  question  that  can  be  answered  off- 
hand.    We  must  proceed  by  cautious  observation. 

The  chief  State  officials  under  the  old  system  fell, 
roughly,  into  one  of  two  classes.     Either  they  were 


416  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

great  noblemen,  whose  support  was  essential  to  the 
safety  of  the  Government,  or  they  were  men  whom 
the  Crown  had  raised  from  humble  positions,  because 
of  their  industry,  their  capacity,  their  suppleness,  and 
their  devotion  to  its  interests.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
a  Privy  Council  was,  as  a  rule,  about  equally  divided 
between  these  two  classes.  When  a  strong  king  was 
on  the  throne,  the  latter  showed  a  tendency  to  pre- 
dominate, because  the  Crown  felt  itself  able  to  do 
without  the  support  of  magnates  whose  independence 
was  a  standing  source  of  irritation.  But  when,  as  in 
the  days  of  Richard  II.  and  Henry  VI.,  the  monarch 
was  weak,  the  Council  Chamber  was  filled  with  great 
nobles — men  like  John  of  Gaunt,  Gloucester,  War- 
wick, Arundel,  Bedford,  York,  and  Somerset — whose 
quarrels  continually  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  realm. 
It  was,  however,  the  special  good  fortune  of  England 
that  a  third  class  of  Ministers,  men  chosen  simply 
for  their  social  charm,  though  well  known  on  the 
Continent,  never  made  good  their  position  here.  As 
soon  as  they  appeared,  they  were  ruthlessly  swept 
aside  by  the  sterner  elements  in  politics. 

The  accession  of  the  Tudor  dynasty  marked  a 
decided  leaning  towards  the  second  class  of  Crown 
officials.  The  aristocratic  names  disappear  from  the 
records  of  the  State,  and  are  replaced  by  those  of 
men  like  Dudley,  Wolsey,  Thomas  Cromwell,  Cecil, 
Walsingham,  and  Thomas  Smith,  some  of  whom 
founded  great  families,  but  who  were  very  humble 
persons  when  first  admitted  to  the  royal  favour. 
That  the  change  was  fully  realised,  at  least  by  some 
people,  is  proved  by  the  language  of  the  rebels  in  the 


MINISTERIAL    TYPES  417 

Pilgrimage  of  Grace  in  1536.  One  of  the  claims  of 
the  discontented  faction  was  "  the  taking  away  of  the 
base  blood  from  the  Council."  In  spite  of  a  dangerous 
leaning  towards  personal  favourites,1  the  Stuarts 
followed,  on  the  whole,  the  example  of  the  Tudors  ; 
and  it  is  again  one  of  the  thoughts  which  so  con- 
stantly compel  us  to  regard  the  Civil  War  as  a  great 
turning-point  in  history,  that  if  Charles  could  only 
have  been  brought  to  accept  Eliot  or  Pym  as  his 
Minister,  the  Civil  War  need  never  have  been  fought. 
But  it  was  too  soon  yet  to  argue  that  successful 
Parliamentary  Opposition  gave  a  claim  to  office. 
Strafford  preferred  to  be  a  Minister  of  the  old  type 
and  lost  his  head  in  consequence. 

We  have  seen,  already,  how  it  was  that  the  Minister 
whose  chief  qualification  was  devotion  to  the  personal 
interests  of  the  Crown,  was  gradually  replaced  by  the 
type  of  Minister  who  owes  his  position  mainly  to 
other  influences  ;  and  there  is  no  need  to  tell  the 
story  again.  The  question  rather  is — what  sort  of 
Minister  have  these  new  influences  produced? 

It  is  great  testimony  to  the  power  of  Burke's  pene- 
tration, that,  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter  after 
his  famous  pamphlet  was  written,  we  are  still  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  there  can  hardly  be  any  better 
definition  of  the  sources  of  political  power  than  those 
which  he  gives.  A  politician  who  succeeds  in  reaching 
high  office  generally  owes  his  success  to  one  of  two 
causes,  connection  or  popularity,  or,  it  may  be,  to  a 

1  The  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  was  assassinated  in  1628,  is 
perhaps  the  most  glaring,  because  the  most  successful,  example  of 
the  royal  "  favourite  "  in  English  politics. 

28 


41 8  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

combination  of  both.  These  two  sources,  so  different 
in  their  character,  faithfully  reflect  that  dual  spirit 
in  British  institutions,  which  is  at  once  so  puzzling 
and  so  attractive  to  competent  foreign  observers. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  would  be  possible  to  argue  with 
great  force  that  no  system  of  government  in  the  world, 
not  even  that  of  the  Swiss  Republic,  is  so  democratic 
as  the  British.  On  the  other,  it  is  easy  to  point  out, 
by  reference  to  numerous  examples,  that  intensely 
conservative  and  exclusive  element  in  our  system 
which  has  preserved,  even  under  modern  conditions, 
an  almost  unbroken  current  of  political  tradition  for 
upwards  of  two  hundred  years.  The  introduction  of 
the  Cabinet  System  did  not  create  these  elements  ; 
but  it  altered  the  conditions  under  which  they  worked. 
And  it  is  in  that  respect  that  its  interest,  for  our 
immediate  purpose,  lies. 

In  old  days  an  aristocracy  which  felt  itself  slighted 
indulged  in  dangerous  intrigues  and  plots.  A  people 
which  felt  itself  plundered  and  oppressed  broke  out 
into  insurrection  or  obstruction.  Under  present  con- 
ditions, if  the  privileged  classes  feel  that  things  are, 
from  their  point  of  view,  going  badly,  a  few  of  the 
more  influential  and  able  among  them  pass  the  word 
along  that  electric  current  which  vibrates  so  power- 
fully throughout  a  highly  organised  society.  The 
aristocratic  institutions  of  the  country,  the  peerage, 
the  Church,  the  older  universities,  the  great  public 
schools,  the  army,  the  bar,  the  wealthy  clubs,  become, 
almost  unconsciously,  centres  of  propagandism.  Bar- 
gains are  made,  half  unconsciously,  to  secure  their 
support.       The    enormous    social    influence    at    their 


Flexibility  of  the  system  419 

disposal  is  used  for  spreading  among  the  lower  ranks 
in  the  social  hierarchy  doctrines  which  inculcate 
respect  for  the  ancient  order.  Harshness  towards 
inferiors  is  tacitly  forbidden,  as  likely  to  produce 
unpopularity.  Dallying  with  dangerous  ideas,  some- 
times a  favourite  relaxation  with  aristocrats,  is  sternly 
discouraged,  and  labelled  as  bad  form.  On  the  other 
hand,  orthodox  brilliancy,  if  it  shows  itself  in  the 
ranks  of  the  upper  classes,  is  loudly  applauded  ;  for 
a  reputation  for  intellect,  though  it  perhaps  counts 
for  less  in  the  British  Empire  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  has  its  value.  Systematic  efforts  are  made 
to  win  over  powerful  opponents  from  the  opposite 
camp.  Literature  and  science  are  pressed  into  the 
cause.  Sometimes  accidental  circumstances,  such  as 
a  long  run  of  commercial  prosperity  or  a  great  war, 
are  powerful  adjuncts  ;  for  men  who  are  making 
fortunes  rapidly  are  unlikely  to  attack  privileges 
which  they  hope  soon  to  share,  and  in  a  great  war 
the  undoubted  virtues  of  a  good  aristocracy  come 
out  well,  if  some  of  its  defects  are  likewise  some- 
what conspicuous.  Gradually  the  vane  of  public 
opinion  swings  round.  Then  it  is  that  the  wonderful 
flexibility  of  the  Cabinet  System  appears.  That 
system  requires,  in  effect,  that  every  Minister  shall  be 
a  member  of  one  or  other  House  of  Parliament ;  and 
it  was  at  one  time  thought,  that  the  Reform  Acts  of 
the  nineteenth  century  had  put  an  end  to  the  influence 
of  the  privileged  classes  in  the  constituencies.  They 
have  merely  altered  its  methods.  A  great  political 
chief  cannot  now  bargain  with  one  of  his  aristocratic 
followers  for  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  in  exchange  for 


420  H/STORV  AND   CRITICISM 

half  a  dozen  boroughs.  If  he  wishes  to  secure  the 
return  of  one  of  his  friends,  he  must  make  speeches, 
despatch  telegrams,  open  bazaars,  preside  at  local 
festivities,  send  down  smart  people  to  canvass,  and 
otherwise  make  use  of  the  party  organisation.  If  all 
this  fail,  he  can  fall  back  on  the  House  of  Lords 
to  supply  him  with  colleagues.  The  great  difficulty 
in  such  a  scheme  lies  in  finding  people  willing  to 
play  the  somewhat  ungrateful  part  of  making  a 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons,  for  the  sake 
of  keeping  an  aristocratic  connection  in  power.  For 
this  part  the  natural  and  proper  players  are,  of  course 
the  younger  scions  of  the  great  houses  whose  heads 
occupy  the  great  offices  ;  for  they  may  look  forward, 
in  the  natural  order  of  things,  to  succeeding  in  due 
course  to  the  same  offices.  But  these  persons  are 
often  somewhat  unwilling  to  desert  the  pleasant 
pastures  and  flowery  lanes  of  leisured  life,  for  the 
dusty  high-road  of  political  drudgery.  And  so,  no 
doubt,  those  whose  power,  in  the  words  of  Burke, 
"  arises  from  connection,"  must  often  have  cause  to 
bless  that  element  in  human  nature,  which  leads 
men  to  think  themselves  well  paid  for  hard  and 
monotonous  work,  and  much  sacrifice  of  time  and 
money,  by  a  somewhat  grudging  dole  of  social 
and  honorary  distinctions. 

The  methods  adopted  by  those  who  seek  power 
mainly  through  the  influence  of  popularity,  and  who 
rely  on  the  democratic  element  in  the  Constitution, 
must  naturally  be  very  different  in  detail.  With 
them  the  first  necessity  is  a  grievance  which  can  be 
appreciated  by  the  mass  of  the  electors.     Unhappily 


POLITICAL    ORGANISATIONS  \2\ 

the  choice  is,  as  a  rule,  only  too  extensive ;  for, 
wherever  sorrow  and  suffering  exist,  there  are 
materials  for  grievances.  Men  usually  believe  (and 
surely  it  is  a  good  thing  that  they  do  so  believe) 
that  sorrow  and  suffering  are  not  inevitable  accom- 
paniments of  life,  but  the  results  of  mismanagement 
or  oppression  of  some  kind  or  another.  Such 
pessimism  as  exists  in  the  British  character,  generally 
takes  the  form  of  believing  that  the  wrongdoer  is  too 
powerful  to  be  overcome,  rather  than  that  deeper  form 
which  believes  that  wrongdoing  is  inevitable  in  the 
order  of  Nature.  And  so  the  Englishman  can  often 
be  persuaded  that  there  is  a  chance  of  bettering  his 
position  ;  and,  with  his  interest  in  politics,  he  is  not 
unwilling  to  believe  that  the  remedy  lies  in  a  change 
of  administration  or  in  legislative  reform.  There  are 
always  in  existence  a  great  number  of  organisations, 
each  formed  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  a  particular 
grievance.  When  the  political  atmosphere  is  un- 
favourable, these  societies  languish,  or  are  maintained 
only  by  great  effort  on  the  part  of  determined  men. 
But  a  long-continued  depression  in  trade,  the  occur- 
rence of  some  startling  event  in  foreign  politics,  the 
appearance  of  a  skilfully  written  book  or  an  agitator 
of  unusual  power,  quickens  them  into  activity.  The 
men  engaged  in  the  practical  work  of  politics — 
Members  of  Parliament,  editors  of  newspapers, 
managers  and  committees  of  party  organisations — - 
select  one  or  more  of  them  for  adoption  into  a 
programme.  If  the  choice  is  judiciously  made,  the 
increased  prominence  thus  given  to  the  selected 
objects    brings    them    before    the   attention   of    the 


\22  HISTORY  AND    CRITICISM 

public.  A  regular  campaign  is  organised,  conviction 
spreads  by  contagion,  the  prospect  of  achieving 
a  definite  result  inspires  energy  in  multitudes  who 
care  little  for  abstract  questions,  but  are  keenly  alive 
to  the  excitement  of  an  active  agitation.  Definite 
proposals  are  formulated,  and  these  soon  become, 
by  the  mere  force  of  repetition,  political  dogmas, 
which,  if  successful,  carry  their  champions  into  the 
House  of  Commons  and  finally  into  office,  and  are 
embodied  in  legislation  or  administration. 

This  rapid  sketch  of  the  normal  process  of  English 
political  organisation  reveals  both  the  comprehensive- 
ness and  the  limits  of  the  Cabinet  System.  Briefly 
put,  it  is  a  system  of  government  by  persuasion  ;  and 
there  is  room  in  it  for  all  men  who  can  persuade,  and 
for  all  measures  which  can  be  carried  by  persuasion. 
One  of  the  most  curious  mistakes  ever  made  by  a 
keen  observer,  was  Carlyle's  theory,  that  the  nation 
was  really  governed  by  the  oratory  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Even  in  Carlyle's  time  the  House  of 
Commons— that  is  to  say,  the  public  debates  in 
the  House  of  Commons — had  become  very  unreal  ; 
and  it  is  now  almost  a  truism  that  votes  are  rarely, 
if  ever,  turned  by  a  speech  in  the  House.  Even  the 
great  speeches  in  the  constituencies  are  much  more 
like  parades  than  genuine  fighting.  The  real  work 
of  government,  at  any  rate  the  large  questions  of 
policy,  are  done  and  decided  in  committee  rooms, 
in  personal  canvass,  in  the  columns  of  the  press,  and 
in  the  Cabinet — that  is  to  say,  by  informal  discussion 
and  persuasion. 

Doubtless  this  fact  makes,  in  one  sense,  for  com- 


GOVERNMENT  BY  PERSUASION  423 

prehension  and  toleration.  The  value  of  persuasive- 
ness is  so  great,  that  no  party  can  venture  to  neglect 
a  man  or  a  cause  which  can  reach  the  popular  ear. 
Occasionally  the  leaders  of  a  party  indulge  their 
personal  predilections  by  boycotting  an  influential 
man  whom  they  happen,  on  social,  or  religious,  or 
any  other  irrelevant  ground,  to  dislike,  or  by  refusing 
to  take  up  a  cause  to  which,  on  similar  grounds,  they 
object.  But  the  process  is  so  dangerous  that  it  is  not 
often  pursued  ;  and  it  is  fairly  safe  to  say,  that  the 
Cabinet  System  has  brought  scores  of  men  into 
high  office  who,  under  the  old  system,  would  have 
had  no  chance  of  admission  to  the  sacred  precincts 
of  power,  and  given  life  to  causes,  not  all  of  them 
very  wise,  of  which  the  old  system  would  have  taken 
no  account.  And  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  it  is 
strictly  in  those  parts  of  the  Constitution  which  are 
immediately  under  the  control  of  the  Cabinet  System 
that  this  is  most  true.  The  other  parts,  such  as  the 
higher  ranks  of  the  permanent  civil  service,  the 
diplomatic  service,  the  army  and  navy,  are  still 
largely  an  aristocratic  preserve,  just  because  they 
are,  and  with  good  reason,  excluded  from  the  direct 
operation  of  the  Cabinet  System. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied  that,  to 
a  certain  type  of  politician  and  a  certain  kind  of 
political  measure,  the  Cabinet  System  is  distinctly 
unfavourable.  The  man  of  great  force  of  character, 
tenaciously  bent  on  carrying  out  a  distant  object 
of  supreme  importance,  finds  no  ostensible  place  in 
it  ;  for  such  a  man  has  rarely  the  arts  necessary  to 
succeed    in  a  system  of  government    by  persuasion. 


424  HISTORY  AND   CRITICISM 

Even  if  he  is  born  to  the  prospect  of  a  peerage,  and 
is  marked  out  by  social  position  and  wealth  for 
respectful  treatment,  he  finds  it  difficult  to  get  a 
hearing  from  those  who  should  be  his  colleagues  and 
subordinates ;  for  they  are  so  busy  in  organising 
their  party,  and  looking  after  their  majority,  that  they 
have  little  time  for  thinking  of  the  future.  If  he  has 
to  struggle  from  obscurity  through  the  House  of 
Commons,  the  best  years  of  his  life  are  occupied 
in  impressing  himself  upon  the  House  and  gathering 
followers  about  him.  And  so  the  typical  Minister 
in  the  Cabinet  System  is  rarely  more  than  an  honest 
opportunist,  who  tries  to  do  what  he  can  to  remedy 
very  pressing  evils,  without  endangering  his  popularity 
with  his  party,  or  leaving  himself  open  to  damaging 
criticism  by  his  opponents.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a 
statesman  of  the  type  of  Bismarck  or  Cavour,  with 
a  plan  for  the  unification  of  Germany  or  Italy, 
being  produced  by  the  Cabinet  System,  or  at  any 
rate  a  statesman  who  carried  out  his  plan  so 
completely  and  so  rapidly.  It  is  not  a  little 
significant  to  reflect,  that  the  most  striking  and 
systematic  achievement  of  British  statesmanship  in 
the  last  half-century,  the  federation  of  the  Australian 
colonies,  was  achieved  by  the  temporary  abandon- 
ment of  the  Cabinet  System. 

Whether,  in  conclusion,  this  apparent  defect  of  the 
system  is  a  real  defect,  is  a  question  too  deep  to  be 
discussed  here.  It  belongs  rather  to  the  abstract 
problems  of  political  science  than  to  the  practical 
questions  of  British  politics.  It  will  occur  to  every 
one  that,  in  excluding  from  office  a  statesman  of  the 


THE    CAM  SET  AXD    THE    COUSTRY  425 

masterful  type,  such  as  Bismarck  or  Pobiedonostsev, 
or  of  the  Macchiavellian  type,  such  as  Metternich, 
Talleyrand,  or  Cavour,  the  Cabinet  System  is  but 
faithfully  reflecting  the  British  character,  which  loves 
neither  to  be  driven  nor  puzzled.  It  is  ill  having 
great  statesmen  and  great  plans  at  the  risk  of 
revolution.  The  cry  of  "  efficiency,"  which  is  so 
often  raised  when  the  occurrence  of  some  public 
disaster  reveals  a  weakness  of  political  machinery, 
expresses  a  feeling  with  which  every  lover  of  his 
country  will  sympathise.  But  it  is  too  apt  to  pass 
into  a  vacjue  vearninq;  for  that  high-handed  Csesarism 
which,  as  history  warns  us,  is  inconsistent  with  the 
character  of  a  people  long  accustomed  to  the  tolerant, 
if  somewhat  negligent  ways,  of  self-government.  The 
one  thoroughly  "  efficient  "  administration  which  has 
ruled  England  in  the  last  three  hundred  years  was 
the  Protectorate  administration  of  Cromwell.  And 
this,  in  spite  of  the  magnificence  of  its  triumphs 
abroad,  and  its  uprightness  and  economy  at  home, 
provoked  a  resentment  so  deep  as  to  render  even 
moderately  honest  government  well-nigh  impossible 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

But  there  is  one  other  point.  What  if  the  growth 
of  the  Cabinet  System  is,  after  all,  but  another 
instance  of  that  specialisation  of  functions  which 
we  are  wont  to  detect  in  watching  the  development 
of  political  institutions  ?  In  the  old  system,  the  men 
at  the  head  of  affairs  had  to  find  the  ideas  as  well 
as  to  apply  them.  Their  successors,  in  the  new,  find 
themselves,  more  and  more,  the  mere  exponents  and 
enforcers  of  ideas  which  are  furnished  to  them  from 


426  ///STORY  AND   CRITICISM 

without.  In  political  language,  we  say  that  "their 
choice  of  measures  is  dictated  by  the  feeling  of  the 
country."  But  who  makes  the  feeling  of  the  country? 
It  does  not  follow  that  great  ideas  are  lost  because 
those  who  conceive  them  are  not  seated  in  offices 
in  Downing  Street.  Perhaps  they  are  none  the  less 
likely  to  take  root  on  that  account.  More  than  once 
it  has  been,  that  the  word  of  a  wandering  missionary, 
or  the  pen  of  a  lonely  thinker,  has  shaped  the  course 
of  the  world's  history.  Even  the  Cabinet  System 
itself  has  hints  of  such  a  truth.  It  often  happens, 
in  great  State  pageants  in  England,  that,  among  the 
blaze  of  robes  and  uniforms,  orders  and  emblems, 
coronets  and  weapons,  the  really  important  figures 
are  those  of  a  few  modest-looking  gentlemen  in  garb 
so  simple  as  to  seem  almost  out  of  place  in  such 
a  scene.  And  yet  they  are  the  real  centre  round 
which  all  this  splendid  mass  of  ceremony  revolves. 
What  if  they,  too,  move  obedient  to  the  thoughts  and 
hopes  inspired  in  them  and  their  fellow-countrymen 
by  still  humbler  figures,  to  whom  it  is  sometimes 
given  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  those  truths  which  lie 
hid  in  secret  places. 


LEADING    DATES   IN   THE    HISTORY   OE   THE 
CABINET   SYSTEM 

(1660- i 83 2) 

1663.     Last  grant  of  a  subsidy  by  Convocation. 
l_jl665.     Establishment  of  principle  of  special  votes  of  money 
by  the  House  of  Commons. 
>6f36.     Appointment  by  Parliament  of  Committee  to  inspect 
accounts  of  officials. 

1667.     The  "  Cabal "  Ministry. 

1669.     Dismissal  of  Sir  George  Carteret  on   report  of  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Accounts. 

1672.     Stop  of  the  Exchequer. 

1679.     Impeachment  of  Danby  (Responsibility  of  Ministers). 

1688-9.     The  Revolution  and  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

1689.     The  first  annual  Mutiny  Act. 
L1694.     Foundation  of  the  Bank  of   England.     Beginning  of 
the  National  Debt.     The  Triennial  Act  (Parliament 
not  to  sit  for  more  than  three  years,  nor  to  be  sus- 
pended for  more  than  three  years). 

1697.     The  "Junto"  Ministry. 

1 70 1.  The  Act  of  Settlement.     Clauses  III.  (4)  and  (6). 

1702.  United  Tory  Ministry  with  a  majority  in  the  House  of 

Commons. 
1704.     The  Aylesbury  election  case. 
1705-6.     Whig  Ministry  with  a  Parliamentary  majority. 

1703.  The  Act  of  Security  (requiring  re-election  of  members 

accepting    office,   and    excluding    holders    of    new 
offices  from  the  House  of  Commons). 
1707.     The  Union  with  Scotland. 

4-7 


4-8  LEADING   DATES   /N    THF 

1710.     Fall   of   the    Whig    Ministry  ;    Tory    majority   at    the 

elections. 
1714.     United  Whig  Ministry. 

1 7 16.  The  Septennial  Act. 

1 717.  Retirement  of  Townshend,   Walpole,  and    Pulteney. 

Suspension  of  Convocation  of  Canterbury. 
1719.     Defeat  of  the  Peerage  Bill. 
1721.     Walpole  becomes  head  of  the  Ministry. 
1733.     Walpole  abandons  the  Excise  Bill. 
1742.     Resignation      of      Walpole.      Wilmington's    Ministry 

(Whig  secession).     Place  Act. 

1744.  Pelham    becomes   Chief    Minister  ("Broad    Bottom" 

Administration). 

1745.  Sir  Francis  Dashwood's  motion  for  Reform. 

1746.  Admission  of  Pitt  (the  elder)  to  office. 

1754.     Newcastle  Chief  Minister  (on  death  of  Pelham). 

1756.  Devonshire-Pitt  Ministry. 

1757.  Unsuccessful  attempt  by  the  King  to  get  rid  of  Pitt. 

Newcastle-Pitt  Ministry. 

1761.  Resignation  of  Pitt.     Bute  in  office. 

1762.  Bute   Ministry.      Attempt    to    introduce  the    "spoils" 

system. 

1763.  Resignation   of    Bute.     Grenville    Ministry.^    Coalition 

with  the  Bedford  Section. 
1763-6.     Wilkes  and  "  No.  45." 

1765.  Rockingham  Ministry. 

1766.  Grafton-Pitt  Ministry. 

1768- 1770.     Wilkes  and  the  Middlesex  election. 

1770.  Lord  North  Chief  Minister.      Publication  of   Burke's 

Thoughts   on    the    Cause  of  the   Present    Discontents. 
Grenville  Election  Act. 

1771.  Attempt  to  prevent  publication  of   Parliamentary  de- 

bates (unsuccessful). 

1773.     Regulating  Act  (India). 

1780.  Great  Yorkshire  petition.  Dunning's  motion  on  power 
of  the  Crown  (carried). 

1782.  Resignation  of  North.  (Second)  Rockingham  Ministry. 
Irish  Government  (Declaratory)  Act.  Civil  List  Re- 
form Act.  Contractors'  Act.  Death  of  Rockingham. 
Shelburne  Ministry.     Resignation  of  Fox  and  Burke. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   CABINET  SYSTEM  429 

1783.  Defeat  of  Shelburne.     Coalition  Ministry  of  Fox  and 

North.  Defeat  of  Ministry  in  Lords  on  India  Bill. 
Ministry  dismissed  by  King.  First  Ministry  of 
William  Pitt  (the  younger). 

1784.  Successful  appeal  to  the  constituencies.     Pitt's  India 

Act. 
1788-9.     The  Regency  Question. 
1792.     Fox's  Libel  Act. 

1800.  The  Union  with  Ireland. 

1801.  Resignation  of  Pitt  on  the  Catholic   Relief  question. 

Addington  Ministry. 
1804.     Second  Ministry  of  Pitt. 

1806.  Death  of  Pitt.     Ministry  of  "  All  the  Talents." 

1807.  Portland  Ministry.     (Perceval,  Canning,  Castlereagh, 

&c.) 
1809.     Perceval  Ministry. 
1812.     Liverpool  Ministry. 
1817.     The"Sidmouth  Circular." 
1 8 19.     The  "  Six  Acts."    Appearance  of  "  Radicals,"  "  Liberals," 

"  Conservatives." 
1824.     Repeal  of  Combination  Laws  (Act  altered  in  1825). 

1827.  Canning  Ministry.     Death  of  Canning.     Goderich. 

1828.  Wellington  Ministry  (Peel). 

1829.  Catholic  Relief  Act. 

1830.  Grey  Ministry. 
1832.     First  Reform  Act. 


LIST   OF   SELECTED   AUTHORITIES   FOR    THE 

PERIOD 

(1660-183 2) 


Cobbett. 
Hansard. 

Campbell. 
Macpherson. 


Cunningham,  W 

Traill  (ed.) 


r.  For  the  whole  period. 

Parliamentary  History  oj  England,  con- 
tinued, after  1803,  as 

Parliamentary  Debates. 

Journals  of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and 
Commons  respectively. 

Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  and  Lives  of 
the  Chief  Justices. 

Annals  of  Commerce,  Manufactures,  &c. 
(Earliest  times  to   1801). 

Statutes  of  Ike  Realm.  (The  best  edition, 
that  of  the  Record  Commission,  only 
reaches  1713  ;  but  there  are  many 
editions  of  the  later  statutes.) 

Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce 
(Vol.  II.). 

Social  England  (Vols.  IV.,  V.,  and  VL). 


2.  For  the  later  Seventeenth  Century. 

Miscellany. 


Green  (Mrs.  E.) 

Clarendon. 

Burnet. 


The    Harleian 

Walker.) 
State  Papers  of  Charles  II. 
Continuation  of  his  Life. 

History  of  His  Own  Time. 
430 


(Index    by 


LIST  OF  SELECTED  AUTHORITIES  FOR  THE  PERIOD  43  I 


Evelyn. 

Granimont. 
North. 
Pep  vs. 

Macaulay. 


Bolingbroke. 
Shrewsbury. 

Swift. 


Hervey. 

Walpole  (Horace). 


Jesse. 

Chatham  (Earl  of), 

Smith. 

Russell. 

Waldegrave. 

"  Junius  "  (pseud.) 
North  (Lord). 
Burke. 


Grafton  (third 

Duke  of). 
Auckland  (Lord). 
Eden. 


Diary  and  Correspondence. 
Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II. 

Lives  of  the  Norths. 
Brief  Historical  Narrative. 

(Text-book) 
History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of 
James  II. 

For  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

Letters  and  Correspondence. 

Private  and  Original  Correspondence  of. 

(Various  writings  :  especially  Journal  to 
Stella,  On  the  Conduct  of  the  Allies, 
History  of  the  Last  Four  Years  of  Queen 
Anne.) 

Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  II. 

Letters  to  Sir  Horace  Mann  ;  Memoirs  oj 
the  Reign  of  George  II.  ;  Memoirs  of  the 
Early  Reign  of  George  III. 

George  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries 
(Letters  to  Selwyn). 

Correspondence. 

The  Grenvillc  Papers. 

The  Bedford  Correspondence. 

Memoirs. 

Annual  Register  (from  1758  onwards). 

Letters  (of  course  highly  controversial). 

Correspondence  with  George  III. 

Thoughts  on  the  Cause  of  the  Present  Dis- 
contents ;  Speech  on  American  Taxation, 
&c. 

Autobiography  (ed.  by  Sir  W.  Anson). 
Journal  and  Correspondence. 
State  of  the  Poor. 


Lecky. 


(Text-books.) 
History    of    England 
Century. 


in 


the    Eighteenth 


432  LIST  OF  SELECTED  AUTHORITIES  FOR  THE  PERIOD 


Lecky. 

Torrens. 


Stanhope. 

» 
Trevelyan. 
M  or  ley. 
Toynbee. 


History  of  Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

History  of  Cabinets  (confused  and  dull, 
but  containing  a  mass  of  valuable  in- 
formation). 

History  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne. 

History  of  England  from  1713-1783. 

Early  History  of  Cliarles  James  Fox. 

Edmund  Burke. 

The  Industrial  Revolution. 


4.  For 

Home  Tooke. 
Buckingham 

(Duke  of). 
Rose  (George) 
Romilly  (Samuel). 
Horner. 
Bam  ford. 
Wallas. 

Scott  (Sir  Walter). 


Alison. 

Walpole  (Spencer). 

Molesworth. 


the  early  Nineteenth  Century. 

Annual  Register  (1801-1832). 

History  of  Prices  (1793-1837). 

Memoirs  of  the  Courts  and  Cabinets  of 
George  III.     (Vols.  III.  and  IV.) 

Diary  (ed.  Harcourt). 

Correspondence  and  Journal. 

Memoirs  and  Coirespondence. 

I'assages  in  the  Life  of  a  Radical. 

Life  of  Francis  Place  (virtually  an  auto- 
biography). 

Journal  (1825-  1832). 

(Text-books.) 
History  of  Europe  (1787-1815). 
History  of  England  from  1815. 
History  of  the  Reform  Bill. 


INDEX 


A 

Abercromby,  Sir  Ralph,  310 
'•  Abhorrers,"  28 

Addington,  afterwards  Lord  Sid- 
mouth,  317,  331,  334 
Aislabie,  141 
Aix-la-Chapelle,    Peace    of,    155, 

165.  394 
Albemarle,  96 
Althorpe,  Viscount,  357 

American  Colonies,  155,  175, 
201  ff.,  212  ft".,  220,  226,  234. 
241.  253 

Amherst,  Sir  Jeffrey,  Governor  of 
Virginia,  226 

Amiens,  Peace  of,  317 

Annandale,  Marquis  of,  102 

Anne,  Queen,  52,  70,  97  ff. 

Anson,  Admiral,  155,  16S 

Arcot,  154,  166 

Arlington,  Henry  Bennet,  Earl 
of,  18.  19,  24,  383 

Ashby,  Matthew,  108  ff. 

Ashley,  afterwards  Karl  of  Shaftes- 
bury, 17,  22,  24 

Ashion,  68,  80 

Attainder,  Act  of,  62 

Auckland,  Lord,  see  "  Eden  " 

Augusta  of  Saxe  Gotha,  Princess 
of  Wales,  179,  209 

Austerlitz,  Battle  of,  318 

Australia,  155,  398,  424 

Austria,  165 

Auverquerque,  96 

Aylesbury  election,  10S  ft". 


B 

Bagehot,  Walter,  399,  406 
Baillie,  prosecution  of,  32S 
Pallinamuck,  surrender  at,  312 
Bancoolen,  26S 
Bank  of  England,  22,   140,   143,. 

257,  388 
Bantry  Bay,  French  expedition  to,. 

3°9 

Barbadoes,  203 

Barnard,  Sir  John,  204 

Barrington,  Lord,  186 

Bastille,  fall  of  the,  299 

Bath,  see  "  Pulteney  " 

Beachy  Head,  defeat  oft",  62,  7S 

Beaufoy,  265,  323 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  161,  196,  209 

Behar,  268 

Benares,  Rajah  of  (Cheyt  Singh), 
267,  289 

Bengal,  174,  268 

Bennet,  see  "Arlington" 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  328 

Bentinck,  66,  96 

Beresford,  306 

Bergen-op-Zoom,  battle  of,  165 

Berkeley,  132,  383 

Bernard,  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 207,  228 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  180,  iSl, 
398  _ 

Blenheim,  1 12 

"  Bloomsbury  Gang,"  161,  196 

Bolingbroke,  see  "  St.  John." 

Bolton,  Duke  of,  152 

29  A3> 


434 


INDEX 


Bompard,  312 

Bombay,  266,  26S 

Boscawen,  1S7 

Boston  (Mass.),  212,  230.  233 

Bottetort,  Lord,  215,  228 

Bounty  Acts,  298 

Boyle,  Lord,  102 

Boyle,  Robert,  132 

Boyne,  battle  of  the,  62 

Braddock,  General,  168,  175 

Breda,  Declaration  of,  6 

Bromley,  William,  112 

Brougham,  Lord,  356,  368,  372 

Buckingham,      2nd       Duke       of 

(Yilliers),  24 
Buckingham,  3rd  Duke  of,  132 
Budget,  292.  305 
Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  ^,2] 
Burges,  Sir  James,  278 
Burgoyne,  General,  234 
Burke,  Edmund,  55,  192  {{.,  245, 

258,  260,  262,  264,  282,  2S9, 

299.  326'  366>  399-417 

Burnet,  Gilbert,  Bishop  of  Salis- 
bury. 90,  105,  116,  118 

Bute,  Earl  of,  179.  184  ff.,  210 

Byng,  Admiral,  10S,  172 

Byron,  Lord,  155 

C 

Cabal,  24,  25,  385 

Cabinet  system,  25,  77.  83,  86, 
93  ff.,  100,  107,  114,  117  ff., 
176,  182,  245,  322,  3S5,  300  ff. 

Caermarthen,  Lord,  74  n.,  278 

<  alcutta,  169,  242,  266,  268 

<  lamden,  Lord,  see  "  Pratt  " 
( "amperdown,  309 

Canada,  175,  187,  240,  244,  263, 

319 
Canning,  George,  Si2.  336,  347, 

35i 

<  ape  Breton,  165 
Carlisle,  Earl  of,  248 
■1  ainatic,  the,  270 

I  larolina  (N.  and  S.),  212 
Caroline,      Princess,      afterwards 

Queen,  144-6 
Carteret,   Lord,   afterwards    Lord 

Granville,  151,  156,  158-61 


Carteret,  Sir  George,  155 

(  asilebar,  311 

( lastlereagh,  314.  348 

Catholic    Association,     252,    347, 

352-3 
<  atholic  Emancipation   Bill,  284, 
307  ff.,  347 

Catholic    Relief    Bill,    241,    253, 

3l6,  331,  348 
(  atholics,   10,  26,  32,   241,   249, 

299  fl'.,  319,  331 
Cavendish,  Lord  John,    245,  260, 

262,  263 
( 'handos.   Marquis  of,  370 
Charlemont,  Lord,  255 
Charles  L,  4,  15,  401 
Charles   II.,    1,  4,    5,    15   ff.,    74, 

381,  385,  401 
Charles  X.,  ol   France,  356 
Chartism,  3  58 
Chatham,  see  "  Pitt" 
Chesterfield,  Earl  of,  152,  161 
Cheyt  Singh,  see  "  Benares,  Rajah 

of" 
Civil  List  Reform,  258,  264,  356 
Civil  War,  the  Great,  1,  15,  136, 

381,  407,  417 
Clarendon,    Edward    Hyde,    Pari 

of,   5,    12  tY. ,  26,   2S,   106,    ](>2y 

382 

Clarendon,     Henry     Hyde,    2nd 

Earl  of,  46,  49 
Clifford,  22 
( Ilinton,  152 
(live,  166,  174,  268 
Coalition  Cabinet,  261,  263,270, 

,  279,  323.  396 

I  millions,  European,  168,  17^, 
3.8 

Cobbett,  333,  338,  370 

Cobham,  152 

1    ike,  Sir  Edward,  380 

( !oke,  of  Norfolk,  277 

Colbert,  60 

Commissioners  of  Accounts,  7S, 
79,  289  n.,  291 

Commissioners,  Ecclesiastical,  370 

Commonwealth,  2,  5,  13,  202,  38  > 

Compton,  afterwards  Lord  Wil- 
mington, 145,  146,  151,  134, 
158,  386 


IXDHX 


435 


Coiifirmatio  Carfarum,  3S1 

Consolidated  Fund,  292 
Contractors'  Act,  257 
Conventicle  Acts,  11,  25 
Convention     Parliaments,    4,    5, 

44  ff.,  70 
Convocation,  Houses  of,  138 
Conway,  General,  211,  215,  218, 

228 
Cooke,  Sir  Thos. .  84 
Cooke  (Irish  official),  306 
Cope,  Sir  John,  162 
Copley,    afterwards    Lord    Lynd- 

hurst,  342,  372 
Corn  Laws,  333.  343 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  235,  311 
Coronation  Oath,  53,  54,  348  ff. 
Corporation  Acts,  II,  106,  351 
Cotton,  Sir  John,  162 
Council  of  Nine,  77 
Council  of  Thirty,  28 
Coventry,  214 
Coventry,  Sir  William,  18,  19,  22, 

24. 383 
Cowper,  Lord,  112,  131 
Craftsman,  the,  149 
Cromwell,  Oliver.  2  ft'..  362 
Crosby,  Lord  Mayor,  239 
Crown  Point,  battle  of,  175 
Cuba,  188 
Culloden,  163 
Cumberland,   Duke   of,    163,  165, 

174 
Curran,  312 

(  Aistoms  Act.  220,  229.  230 
Customs    Revenue,    16,   76,    14S. 

206,    220:    293,    34O 


D 

Danby,  Thos.  ( (sborne,  Earl  of, 
afterwards  Marquis  oi  Caer- 
rrtarthen  and  Duke  of  Leeds, 
24,  26,  37,  45,  4S,  65,  72,  84, 
88,  383,  386 

Darien  Scheme,  the,  101 

Dartmouth,  George  Legge,  Baron, 
68 

Dartmouth,  William  Legge,  Earl 
of,  131 

Dashwood,  Sir  Francis,  155,  1S7 


Declaration  of  Right,  54,  70 

Declaratory       Act       (American 
Colonies),    215,     216 

Declaratory  Act  (Ireland),  252,  255 

Delamere,  69,  72 

Delaval,  88 

Delolme,  398,  406 

De  Ruyter,  22 

Dettingen,  battle  of,  160 

Devonshire,    Duke  of,    IOO,    131, 
170,  174,  189,  386 

Diamond,  battle  of  the,  308 

Dorset,  Duke  of,  151 

Dover,  Treaty  of,  26 

Dowdeswell,  211 

Downing,  Sir  George,  22,  383 

Dublin,  300,  311,  316 

Dudley,  214 

Duncan,  Admiral,  309 
I   Duncannon,  Lord,  357 

Duncombe,  22 
1    Dundas.  afterwards  Lord  Melville, 
262,  265, 270, 272,  275, 289,  300, 
306,  318 

Dunkirk,  165,  187,  235 

Dunning,  403 

Durham,  Lord,  357 

E 

East  India  Company,  84,  135,  233, 

242,  265  ff. 
Eden,     Sir    William,    afterwards 

Lord    Auckland,    248,    310 
Egremont,  Lord,  196 
l.ldon,    Lord    (Scott),   246,    272, 

332,    348,    372 
Eliot,  Sir  John,  380,  417 
Ellenborough,  Lord,  330 
Elliott,  General,  263 
English  Constitution,  12,  47,  408, 

411,414-23 
Erskine,  Thos.,  Lord,  272,  328 
Essex,  Earl  of,  28 
Established  Church  (England),  10, 

83i  io5»  333,  376,  387 
Established  Church  (Ireland),  250, 

315 
Exchequer  Regulation  Act,  264 
Excise  Bill,  76,  148,  152 
Exclusion  Bill,  26,  86,  387 


436 


INDEX 


Falkirk,  163 

Family  Compact,  the,  176 

Finch,  see  "  Nottingham  " 

Firebrace,  Sir  Basil,  S4 

Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  309 

Fitzgerald,  Vesey,  352 

Fitzgibbon,  Lord,  304,  307 

Fitzwilliam,  Earl,  306  I. 

Five  Mile  Act,  12 

Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  103 

Flood,  255,  272 

Florida,  187,  235 

Fontenoy,  162 

Fort    Duquesne,   Sieges   of,    168, 

175 
Fox,     Henry,     afterwards     Lord 

Holland,    88,    166,    170,     189, 

196 
Fox,    Charles  James,    228,    245, 

255,    259    ff-,    270-3,    288    if., 

297,  3i8,  322,  33° 
France,  32,  60,  76,  79,  10 1.   135. 

168,    175,   183,  235,   258,    303, 

308,  324,  356 
Francis,  Philip,  287 
Franklin,     Benjamin,    214,     230, 

232,    259,    263 
Frederick  of  Prussia,   [68,  175 
Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,    [65, 

178,  185 

G 

Gascoyne,  General,  368 

( '.eorge  L,  97,  144.  389>  4°r 

George  II.,    145,    146,   i5°>   l6o> 

176,  395-  401 
George   III.,    178  ff.,    194,    209, 

246,  272,  307,  318,  322,   331, 

335.  401 
George  IV.,  297,  348,  354  f-,  402 
George,  Prince,  of  Denmark,  98 
Georgia,  202 
Germaine,     Lord    George,     234, 

236 
Gibraltar,  141,  262 
Gilbert's  Act,  y^ 
Glencoe,  Massacre  of,  101 
( Gloucester,  Duke  of,  115 
Goderich,  Lord,  351 


Godolphin,     Lord,    69,    S8,     9S", 

in    ff.,    131 
( rordon  Rii  its,  242 
Gower,  Earl,  161,  196,  228 
Graft nn,  Duke  of,  189,  211,   21(1 

21S,  228,  24O 
Graham,  Sir  James,  357 
Granby,  Lord,  212 
Granville,  Lord,  see  "  Carterel 
Grattan,  255,  300,  307,  348 
I  rrenville's  Act,  206  ft.,  363 
Grenville,  George,  170,  174.   194 

205,  225 
Grenville,  William.  210.  275 
Grey,    Charles,    Pari,    j,2^.     356 

368 
( rrosvenor,  1  hos.,  277.  2S1 
Guildford,  see  "  North  " 
Guy,  Henry,  84 

II 

Habeas  Corpus  Act,  54.  no,  197,- 

284,  330,  334 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  (Ireland),  255 
Halifax  (Yorks),  214 
Halifax,     George     Savile,     Earl, 

afterwards     Marquis     of,      2S. 

45,   48,    52,   66,    72.    S4   n. 
Halifax,  Baron,  see  "  Montagu  :: 
1  lamilton,  Dr.,  294 
1  [ampden,  49 
Hanoverian  Succession,  115-  ijS* 

148 
Hansard  libel  case,  40S 
I  [arcourt,  Earl,  131.  179 
I  [ardvi  icke,  Pari,  162 
Hardy,  Thos.,  330 
Ilarley,    Robert,   afterwards   Pari 

of  Oxford,  in,  120,  131,  134 
Harrington,  Earl  of,  151,  161 
]  [astings,  Colonel,  84 
Hastings,  Warren,  26S,  270,  2S9 
1  lavannah,  1S8 
Hearth  Tax,  54 
Heights    of  Abraham,    Pat t b 

175 
Henley,  see  "  North ington 
1  lervey,  Pord,  152 
Hillsborough,  Lord,  226 
Hobart,  302 


INDEX 


437 


bbes,  Thos.,  40 
Hoche,  309 

I  loklernesse,  Lord,  186 
[Jolland,  Lord,  see  "  Fox" 
Holland,  37,  51,  155,  175,  235 
Holt,  Sir  John,  49,  50,  10S 
Holy  Alliance,  330 
Hooghly,  battle  of  the,  175 
Hornby,  Governor,  270 
Howe,  Lord,  83 
Humbert,  General,  312 
Hume,  Joseph,  338,  341 
Hunt,  William,  334,  338 
Huskisson,  $$2.  340.  346,  352 
Hutchinson,    Col.,    Governor 

Mass.,    230 
Hyder  Ali,  270 


of 


Tmpey,  Sir  Elijah,  269,  270 
Imprest,  auditors  of  the,  351 
Indemnity  Acts,  351 
India,    155,    166,    175,    188,    235, 

244.  260  ff. 
India  Bill,  270  ft'..  277,  2S4-9 
Industrial    Revolution,    135,   326, 

331 
Inglis,  Sir  Robert,  354,  367 
Jreland,  61,  77,  242,  245,  248-55, 

299  ff-  343-56'  376 

J 
Jacobites,   61,   67,   69,   87,    102, 

104,    124,  136,  149,  154,    162, 

180,  323,  389 
James  II.,  26,  30  ff.,  47,  60,  385, 

401 
Jeffreys,  Lord,  75,  81,  388 
Jephson,  79 
Jones,  Sir  William,  328 
-''Junius,''  Letters  of,  192,  226,  23S 
"Junto,"  the  Wrhig,  30,  385,  389 
Justices  of  the  Peace,  9  ft. 


3\cppel,  Admiral,  263 

Killala  Bay,   French  landing  in, 

3" 

Xlosterseven,  174,  394 


La  Hogue,  battle  of,  62,  70 
Lake,  General,  310 
Langrishe,  Sir  Hercules,  302 
Laud,  Archbishop,  6 
Lauderdale,  Lord,  340 
Lauffeld,  battle  of,  174 
Law  Merchant,  the,  243 
Legge,  Henry,  166,  170,  174,  186, 

and  see  "  Dartmouth  " 
Leicester  House,   157,   168,    172, 

179 
Lexington,  battle  of,  234 
Littleton,  Sir  Thos.,  49 
Liverpool,  Lord  (Jenkinson),  332, 

35i 
Locke,  40,  380 
Logan,  328 
Long  Parliament,  the,  6,  10,   13, 

36,  362 
Lough  borough,  Lord,  see  "W^ed- 

derburn  " 
Louis  XIV.,  59,  61,  86,  101,  129, 

183 
Louis  XV.,  326 
Louis  Philippe,  356 
Lowther,  Sir  John,  72,  75,  So,  88 
Luttrell,  Colonel,  224-5,  24S 
Lyndhurst,  Lord,  see  "  Copley  " 


M 
Macaulay,   32,  68,  96,  289,   3S6, 

399 
Madras,  165,  266 
Maestricht,  165 
Magna  Carta,  381 
Mahrattas,  269 
Mulmesbury,  Lord,  309 
Malplaquet,  battle  of,  129 
Mansfield,    Lord   (Murray),    170, 

198,  215,   222,  242,  264 
Mar,  Earl  of,  136 
Maria  Theresa,  165 
Marlborough,      John      Churchill, 
Duke    of,     69,     98,      in     ff., 
124,     130,     132 
Marlborough,    Duchess    of,    gS, 

in,    1 1.4 
Martin,  200 


438 


INDEX 


Mary.  Queen,  37,  51  ft'.,  77,  82 
Masham,  Mrs.,  130 
Massachusetts,  212,  226,  232-3 
Maynard,   Serjeant,    44,   49,   66, 

75-  380 
Maynooth,  347 
Mazarin,  25,  60 
McCulloch,  340 
Militia,  IO,  53,  55,  212 
Militia  Act,  7S,  165 
Minden,  battle  of,  175 
Minorca,  129,  141,  168,  172,  187, 

235>  243 
Miquelon  (Newfoundland),  1S7 
Mississippi  boundary,  1S7 
Mitford,  319 
Monk,  General,  4,  20 
Monmouth,  Duke  of,  86 
Montagu,  Baron  Halifax,  84,  88, 

112,  196  ff.,  209 
Montrose,  1  52 
Mordaunt,  (19,  72 
Murphy,  John,  31 1 
Mutiny  Act,  78,  276,  27S 

N 

Nantes,   Revocation  of  Edicl   of, 

60 
Napoleon,  309,  317  f.,  324,  330 
National     Debt,     140,    284,    293, 

344,  388 
National  Political  Union,  373 
National  Society,  333 
Navigation   Acts,   61,    147,    202, 

249,  296 
Nelson,  Lord,  318 
Newcastle,  Thomas,  Duke  of,  151, 

166,  174,  176,  189,  211,  39  1 
Newfoundland,  1S7.  235 
New  York,  220,  226 
New  Zealand,  153 
Niagara,  battle  of,  175 
Nice,  165 
Nonconformists,  Art  to  Exclude, 

6<  134 

North.  Frederick  Lord  (after- 
wards Earl  of  Guildford),  220, 
222,  22S,  229,  235,  242,  258, 
261  ff.,  273 

North  Briton,  the,  196  ff.,  223 


Northington,  Lord  (Henley),  196, 

212,  216,  218,  246 
Nottingham,  Daniel   Finch,  Earl 

of,  44,  46,  48  \\..  65,  84,  98, 

III,  386 
Nuncomar,  269 

O 

Oath  of  Supremacy,  356 
Occasional  Conformity  Bill,  105, 

in,  132 
O'Connell,  Daniel,  346  t'i\,  368 
(  )'(.'onnor,  Arthur,  309 
Oliver,  Lieut. -Governor  of  Mass., 

230 
Oliver,  Alderman,  239 
Onslow,  Col.  George,  238 
Orangeism,  305,  308,  344,  354 

<  >riginal  Contract,  40,  47,  48 
Orissa,  268 

Ormond,  Duke  of,  20,  132,  13, 

<  Hidenarde,  battle  of,  129 

<  >udh,  Begums  and  Nabob  of,  269. 
Owen,  Robert,  334,  338 

<  txford,  Corporation  of,  364 


Paine,  Thus.,  299,  326,  330 
Pardon  Bills,  71,  77,  87 
Paris,   Peace  of,   1S7,  2],^,  240 
Parkes  oi  Birmingham,  338 
Parliament,    Irish,    297,    300    U'., 

3M-  347 
Parliament,  Restoration,  <;,  6,  43, 

45 
Parliament,  Scottish,  103,  128 
Parliamentary  Corruption.  69,  84, 

150,   166,   171,   261,  306,    J63, 

395 
Parliamentary   Reform,   155,  255. 

260,  284,  323,  342,  336   " 
1'arnell,  Sir  I  leniy,  356 
Parnell,  Sir  John,  302,314 
Parsons,  Sir  Lawrence,  303 
Pay  Office  Act,  258 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  340,  351,  354  ff, 
Pelham,  Henry,  151,  158,  166 
Pembroke,  Lord,  73 
Pennsylvania,  212 


INDEX 


4.;  < 


Tepys,  3S2 
Perceval,  331 
Peterloo,  334 
Petition  of  Right,  6,  381 

"  Petitioners,"'  26 

Philippines,  the,  188 

Pitt,  William,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Chatham,  163  ft",  170-6,  190, 
212,  216-19,  225,  234,  237,  320 

Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  246, 
260,  26S,  272,  274-9,  -s3    ff-i 

Place,  Francis.  33S  t!..  373.  375 
Place  Bill,  82,  96,  157 
Plassey,  174 
Polignac,  356 
Pondicherry,  175,  188 
Ponsonby,  304,  307 
Poor  Laws,  333,  376 
Portland,  Duke  of,  211,  24S,  263, 

305.  310 
Portsmouth,  Duchess  of,  86 
Powle,  or  Powell,  Henry,  45,  76 
Poynings'  Acts,  250,  255-6 
Pragmatic  sanction,  165 
Pratt,    afterwards    Earl    Camden, 

197,   212,   215,    218,  228,  245, 

309  ft. 
Press,   the,    134,    223,    237,  261, 

333-  335,  342,  373 
Preston  pans,  162 
Pretender,  the  Old,  38,  101,  134 
Pretender,  the  Young,  162,  393 
Price,  Dr.,  294,  326 
Priestley,  326 
Privy   Council,  21.  n,  66,    117, 

128,  189,  255 
Protestants,   10,  43,  62,  96,   104, 

106,  249,  302  ft'.,  319,  352 
Prussia,  168,  184 
Pulteney,  afterwards  Earl  of  Bath, 

149,  156,  158 
Pym,  380,  4'7 

0 

C 

Quebec  Act,  240,  241 
Queensberry,  Duke  of,  102 

R 

"Radicals,"  33S,  340,  342,  348 


Reform  Bill,  136,   171,  334,  357" 

375-  396,  402.  4>i 
Regency,  34  ft'.,  47,  50,  51,  104, 

209,  296,  317,  332 
Regulating  Act  for  India,  267 
Restoration,    Policy    of    the,    6, 

10,   13,   15,   61,   381 
Revenue  Officers  Act,  256 
Revolution  of  1688,    30,    57,  65, 

10 1,  363,  409 
Revolution,    French,    283,    299, 

305,  324  ft".,  338  (1830),  350 
Richmond,  Duke  of,  216,  234 
Rights,  Bill  of,  57,  276 
Robinson,  Sir  Thos.,  166 
Rochester,  Lawrence  Hyde,  Earl 

of,  28,  46,  49,  98,  ill,  114,  131 
Rockingham,    Marquis    of,     189, 

211,  215,  245,  258,  260 
Rodney,  Admiral,  235,  262 
Rohillas,  the,  269,  289 
"  Rotundanists,"  374 
Rousseau,  299,  325,  32S 
Rowan,  Hamilton',  30S 
Royal     Lancastrian    ( British    and 

Foreign  Schools)  Society,  333 
Russell,  William,  Lord,  30,  81 
Russell,  Lord  John,  348,  351,  357, 

368,  374 
Russell,  Admiral,  62,  70,  S3,  SS 
Russia,  1 84,  235 
Rutland,  Duke  of.  151,  211 


S 

Sacheverel,  Henry,  97.  123.  130 

Sacheverel,  William,  49,  50,  73 

St.  Asaph,  Dean  of,  328 

St.  John,  Henry,  afterwards  Vis- 
count  Bolingbroke,    in,    120, 

^  132  ff.,  149, '165,  179,  380 

St.  Lucia,  235 

St.  Pierre  (Newfoundland).  [87 

Sancroft,  Archbishop,  33.  4S,  oS 

Sandwich.  Lord,  196,  200,  22S, 
234,  236.32S 

Sandys,  158 

Sardinia,  165 

Suvile,  Sir  George,  241 

Sawbridge,  Alderman,  265 

Sawyer,  Sir  Robert,  44 


44© 


INDEX 


Si  irborough,  Lord,  152 

Schism  Act,  134 

Scroggs,  Chief  Justice,  Si 

Security,  Act  of,   103,   10=;,   11S, 

'35 

Sedition  Acts,  284,  330,  334 

■Seidell,  3S0 

Senegal,  235 

Septennial    Act,     56,     i?6,     14S, 
158  *  o         4  , 

Settlement,   Ad    of,    13,  55,   106, 

115  tr..  134.  389 
Settlement,  Presbyterian,  103 

Seven  Years'  War,  154,  174,  267 
Seymour,  Sir  Edward,  46,  80 
Shelhume,  Earl  of,  21S,  246,  2;^. 

258 
Sheridan,  262,  264,  314 
Sheriffmuir,  battle  of,  136 
Sherlock,  William,  31 
Shippen,  123,  149 
Shrewsbury,    Hukc    of,    65,     79, 

131,  134,  386 
Sidney,  Algernon,  30,  Si 
Sidney,  Henry,  79 
"  Six  Acts,"  330,  335 
Slavery,     242,'     26=5,     320,     331, 

376 
Smith,  Adam,   13^ 
Smith,  Thos.,  Speaker,  112 
Somers,  Lord,  2S,  49,  50,  66.  83, 

S8,  131 

Southampton,  Wriothesley,    Earl 

of,  17,  20,  22 
South  Sea  Hubble,  123,  140  ft'. 
Spain,    101,    130,    135,    141,    176, 

187  {.,  235,  258 
Spencer,  Lord  Charles,  2S1 
Spitalfields  silk.  147 
Si  afford,  81 

Stamp  Acts,  134,  206,  212,  228 
Stanhope,  Lord,  138,  143,  389 
States  General,  328,  391 
Stockdale,  328 
.Strafford,  Lord,  6,  -,85 
Suffolk,  Duke  of,  236' 
Sunderland.       Robert       Spencer. 

second  Earl  of,  86  ft'. 
Sunderland,      Charles      Spencer, 

third  Earl  of,  112,  131 
Sura jah  I  )owlah,  170 


Tallage,  Statute  of,  3S1 
Tandy,  Napper,  308,  312 
Temple,  Sir  William,  28,  382 
Temple,     Earl,     168,     170,     174, 
217 

Temple,  Earl  (nephew  of  above), 

272  ff. 
Temple,  Lady  Hester,  168 
Test  Acts,  26,  30,  106,255,351 
1  helwall,  330 
Thompson  (printer),  238 
Thompson,  Sir  John,  83 
Thurlow,    Lord",    237,    246,    260, 

264,  272,  275 
Ticonderoga,  battle  of,  175 
Tillotson,  Archbishop,  68 
Tithe  of  agistment,  252,  315 
Tobago,  235 
Toleration  Act,  103,  3S8 
Tone,  Wolfe,  300,  308,  312 
Tooke,  1  tome,  330 
Torrington,  Ear]  of,  75,  78 
Townshend,  Lord,  143,  151,  389 
lownshend,    Charles,     187,    218, 

220 
Trade  Unionism,  334,  338  ff. 
I  rafalgar,  battle  of,  318 
Treason  Acts,  330,  381 
Trenchard,  88 
Trenton,  battle  of,  234 
Trevor,  Sir  John,  74,  88 
Triennial   Acts,   6,    14,    381  ;  54, 

82,  96,  137,  390 
I  ullibardine,  Lord,  102 
Turenne,  60 
Turner,  Bishop  of  Ely,  68 


U 

1  Ister,  62,  254,  300,  311 

Union    with    Ireland,    298,    312, 

3.i6,  343 
Union    with    Scotland,    102,   105, 

124  fi\,  250 
United  Irishmen,  302,  308  f. 
United  States,  Treaty  with,  263 
Utilitarians,  32S 
Utrecht,  Peace  of,  132,  134,  141 


INDEX 


44* 


Vaubaiij  68 

Vergennes,  259 

Versailles,  Treaty  of,  235 

"  Veto,"  346 

Victoria,  Queen,  376,  402,  40b 

Virginia,  212 

Volunteers,  Irish.  254 


W 

Wager,  Sir  Charles,  151 
Walmoden,  Mdme.  de,  146 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  120  tt., 


161, 


132, 
249, 


/:> 


135-    139.    144-53. 

294,  389  ff. 
Walpole,  Horace,  161 
Wandewash,  battle  of, 
Washington,  234 
Waterloo,  305,  330 
Webb,  Philip,  222 
Wedderburn,    afterwards     Baron 

Loughborough,   232,   236,  246, 

256,  264 
Wellington,   Duke  of,    35 

366,  374 
Wesley,  John,  155 
West  Indies,  203,  235 
Westmorland,      Earl      of, 

Lieut,  of  Ireland,    303,   ; 
Wether  ell,  Sir  Charles,  367 


554, 


Lord 
06 


Wexford,  31 1 
Weymouth,  Lord,  223 
Wharton,  Thos.,  afterwards  Lord, 

73,  84,  131.  388 

Whateley,  230 
Wheble  (printer),  23S 
Wilberforce,  272,  320,  331 
Wilkes,  John,    196-201,    222   ff., 

239-  272 
William  III.,   30,  42  ft-,    5 1    "•> 

64-90,  95,  101,  350,  386 
William    IV.,    368,    372,    374  '■• 

402 
Williams,  Sir  William,  75 
Wilmington,    Lord,    see  "  Comp- 

ton" 
Winchilsea,  Earl  of,  157 
Window  Tax,  256,  293 
Wolfe,  General,  187 


Yelverton,  255,  307 

York,    Duke   of,    son    of  George 

HI.,  332 
Yorktown,  235 


Zulestein,  96 


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